


The Deal Series, Case Version

by glacis



Category: X Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-28
Updated: 2010-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:32:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Deal, Krycek and Mulder wrestle with, uhm, some issues, and Krycek strikes up a truce with Our Heroes.  In Runes, Mulder gets strange messages, unexpected evidence, and a little help from his ...friend?  In Identity, Krycek loses his memory and takes refuge from his pursuers in the one place he feels safe ... with Mulder (a redemption story). Finally, in Recognition, all the characters come to startling conclusions about their own hidden motivations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Deal Series, Case Version

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote the Deal, I started two sets of sequels to it. One, consisting of Runes, Identity and Recognition, is a series of regular X Files with an attempt to build a relationship between Mulder and Krycek. The other, made up of Bait and Possibilities, is strictly sex, and makes no attempt to redeem anyone. Although they have the same starting point, the two series are completely separate from one another. Both series are archived here.

The Deal (case version)

 

He couldn't believe his luck. Maybe, for once, something was going to turn out right. Ever since the double crossing son of a bitch had tried to blow him to kingdom come he'd been running, reacting, twitching at every sound. But now he had a plan. And the bait to set it all in motion had just walked in to his sights.

Mulder looked preoccupied, worried, stressed. Typical, in fact. Maybe a little paler, a bit more tired, than usual, but still there ... still perfect for his needs. He tracked his prey across the street, through the park and over to the apartment building. Waiting until enough time had elapsed to be sure that Mulder was safely in, he passed as silently as a shadow through the side alley and into the back entry, making certain to remain unseen. As he ran lightly up the stairwell, he mentally calculated the odds. It was almost eleven, there were few people out on the streets this late. He should be able to pull it off and get out unseen. On the other hand, if there was a witness, his nine millimeter had a silencer. And the trank darts were strong enough to stop a mountain lion. One FBI agent, no matter how paranoid, shouldn't be a challenge.

He rested outside the anonymous door, regulating his breathing in a manner that was second nature by now, listening intently to the muffled television noises, the rumble of the answering machine, the muted gurgle of the fish tank. One shuffling thunk, then another, as the shoes were kicked off. A short click and tiny rush of air as the tab was pulled on a drink, then the silence of a tired man after a long day at a difficult job. He counted down, twenty, nineteen, taking his time, doing it right. No more messups. He couldn't afford them. No partners now to shoot the wrong person, whether his or Mulder's. No witnesses. It was too damned important. Wouldn't do to break the door in ... not enough time, and too many ears along the corridor.

At the end of his countdown, he scratched, lightly as a cat, then scratched again. The timbre of the silence changed, from relaxed to alert, and the footfalls toward the door were soft and wary. He was unaware of the smile playing about his lips as he ducked slightly, pushing the blank envelope he had brought along against the bottom edge of the door. A pause, then the slightest hint of rustling cloth, as his target bent to peer under the door, seeing the deliberately blocked light, misunderstanding the reason, thinking it was a clue in his never-ending quest, when in actuality it was--

The door opened a crack. A strong hand shoved quickly, forcefully, startling Mulder. Before he could raise his gun, the other man's gun spat once. He clutched at the dart buried in his stomach, fought the conflicting urges to faint and to attack, and swayed as the room began to tilt. His dark haired assailant pushed him none too gently back into the living room and shut the door.

It was bait in the trap. To trap the bait. Alex Krycek smiled gently and leaned forward to catch Mulder as the world went black.

 

His eyes were swimming. And his stomach hurt. And he couldn't move his arms. Hell of a way to wake up ... he must've fallen asleep at a really weird angle on the couch to have such a neck ache... Gradually, the realization filtered through Fox Mulder's mind that something was -- not quite right. The first thing that registered was the fact that he was naked. And he didn't usually sleep naked. One never knew when the MIBs would break into the apartment and take one for a 'little ride', and being nude when that happened was just too humiliating to even consider. Then there was the distinct sensation of carpet fibers pressing against his side and legs. Last time he'd checked, his couch had not been upholstered with shag carpet. Finally, there was the undeniable fact that his arms weren't asleep. They were bound. By metal. He was handcuffed to something, but his eyes weren't cooperating and he couldn't quite focus on his surroundings. And he was very much afraid that any minute now he was going to throw up. Not a good way to wake up.

Sunlight filtered through a tiny window set high into the wall, casting swaying shadows on the sparsely furnished room. A small table, a single chair, and two wrought iron bars set into the wall... he forced himself to assess his surroundings, trying to remain professional, and trying to think of anything other than the nearly overpowering urge to vomit. Whatever the hell had been in that dart had been strong enough to set his system spinning. He pulled himself painfully to a seated position and continued to scan the room. The ridges on the wall behind him, and the approximate six foot separation of the iron bars made him think that at one time they had been the endpieces of a bookcase built into the wall. Now, they made a very effective prison. He eyed the chain binding his wrists to one bar and his left ankle to the other, mentally trying to find a way out. Nothing was immediately apparent.

A rat in a trap. Alex grinned nastily to himself at the description, then let himself into the room, making no effort at stealth. Mulder's head swung away from his rapt contemplation of his ankle chain, a little too quickly to judge by the suddenly green hue of his face. As he fought valiantly to control his stomach, Krycek settled into the lone chair and regarded him with mock sympathy.

"Poor Fox. Got his leg in a trap and his tummy doesn't feel too good, either, now does it?" Mulder suppressed a growl, keeping his teeth clenched against the nausea, and he laughed softly. "It'll pass pretty soon, Mulder. There wasn't anything toxic in it," he reassured him with touching, if utterly false, concern, "and the effects are relatively fast to dissipate."

Mulder tried to ignore the fact that one, he hated this man more than any other single individual on the face of the earth with the possible exception of Cancerman, and two, he was unable to rip his throat out like he really wanted to because he was chained naked to a wall. He forced himself to face his nemesis, chanting "His day will come" silently to himself like a mantra against his own helplessness. Eventually, he calmed down enough to be able to watch his former partner with something close to his usual equanimity.

Alex stared back at him measuringly. When he was certain that Mulder had calmed enough to listen to him, he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees and pinning Mulder with an intensely serious gaze.

"I have a proposition."

"Fuck you!" So much for equanimity.

"Maybe later, if you're lucky." He enjoyed the dumbstruck look on Mulder's face for a split second before continuing with his proposal. "I have something you want. You have something I want. Or, actually, you and your friends have something I want. Are you willing to listen?"

Mulder stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. "Whatever you have, Krycek, I'm not buying. You can go straight to hell."

"Probably," Alex returned with a wry half smile. "But I don't want to go alone. And with your help, I won't."

This time he couldn't restrain the growl. "I don't trust you and I sure as hell am not going to help you!"

Krycek gave him that same measuring look, then smiled. It was not a reassuring sight.

"Yes. You will." He arose from the chair and walked to the door. Pausing to shoot Mulder a last glance, he smiled again. "You will."

Mulder narrowed his eyes at the closed door, then swept a searching glance over the walls. He didn't see any obvious monitoring devices, and he didn't want to waste any time. He had to get the hell out of there, before Alex came back and dragged him further into his little game.

 

Krycek had to admit, he hadn't expected Mulder to recover quite so fast. Watching the determined agent through the concealed camera in the table front, he winced as he saw him open yet another slice on his wrist with the edge of his cuff. Mulder had managed to wedge the side of his cuff under the edge of one of the iron posts, digging into the plaster of the wall in an attempt to loosen the bar and slip his chain free. Unfortunately, this put the hard edge of the cuff cutting directly into the soft skin on his wrists and the blood was starting to flow freely. Alex sighed, and gathered up a stocked medical kit. If he was going to persuade Skinner and Scully to help him, he had to make sure the bait was in good shape. They probably wouldn't be too cooperative if Mulder effectively slit his own wrists and bled to death before they could even figure out where he was being held captive.

Mulder froze as the door drew open again, and Krycek stalked into the room. Dropping a bulky box on the floor a few feet away, Krycek came to within striking distance of Mulder and glared at him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, you damned moron?" Mulder was feeling a little light headed with the remnants of the drug in his system, compounded by the blood loss, and his grip on his temper was nonexistent.

"And if you did manage to pry yourself loose?" Alex inquired, dropping into a comfortable seat on the carpet and regarding Mulder quizzically. "In case you haven't noticed, you're half stoned, your leg is still chained to the wall, and you're stark naked."

Mulder glared woozily at him, then shook his head to clear the last bits of fuzziness from his brain. "I'd rather take my chances naked in a fucking snowstorm than in here with you, Krycek."

"I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed. "You know, if you'd just listen to what I have to say--"

Before he had the chance to finish the remark, Mulder pushed out with all his strength, succeeding in pulling the bar away from the weakened plaster. Before Krycek could react, he swung his fists together in a modified hammering blow, catching the other man across the face and opening up a gash in his cheek with the swinging chain. Alex reacted immediately, with an uppercut that slammed Mulder back against the wall, stunning him. With no wasted motion, Alex pulled Mulder's arms high above his head, all the weight of his body now on his shoulders, and clipped the chain to one of the curled hooks in the design of the wrought iron. Backing away and lifting a hand to his burning cheek, he regarded the writhing figure in front of him with mingled respect and hatred.

The things he had to do to stay alive.

 

Every time he tried to pull himself up, to take some of the strain from his burning shoulders, the cuffs would bite deeper into the cuts on his wrists, He tried to use his hands on the chains, but his fingers slipped on the links, slick with his blood. When he thought that his hands were completely numb and he really would have to start screaming very soon, the damnable door opened again.

Krycek had taken the time to clean his own cut cheek, small butterfly bandages holding it closed. He watched Mulder's face as he approached, readily admitting to himself that the undoubted agony on the face of the troublesome bastard made him feel much better. Stopping to pick up the medkit on his way, he yanked roughly at the chain, dislodging it from the hook. Mulder was unable to muffle his cry of pain as his deadened arms clattered against his midsection, instinctively curling up to protect his groin from the swinging chain. Krycek knelt beside him, waiting for him to catch his breath.

"You really are a pain in the ass, you know." His matter-of-fact tone cut through the haze of pain in Mulder's head, and the agent opened his eyes to see Krycek calmly preparing a syringe full of clear liquid. As he shot a drop from the end of the needle, clearing any air bubbles, he regarded Mulder thoughtfully. "Guess you'll just have to hear my proposition when the others do. Until then, this should make you a little more ... manageable."

Before he could formulate the question, Mulder felt the tiny sting of the needle biting into his bicep, then things went a little strange. Alex watched the normally intense hazel eyes lose focus, the harsh, angry features soften, and reached for the kit. Applying salve to the cuts on Mulder's wrists, he watched his captive thoughtfully. While this particular combination of drugs wouldn't put him out, it would render him pliable and open to suggestion. As he gently worked the medicated cream into the soft skin, cleaning up the lacerations, he let his mind wander. Now might be the best time to plant some ideas. The others should be getting his messages soon, and when they did, he had to be ready.

 

Krycek's fingers gradually slowed as the warmth of his skin was transferred via the medicated cream into Mulder's cold wrists. The pins and needles must have hurt, but thanks to the concoction he'd injected into his captive, Mulder didn't appear to be in any pain. As the feeling returned in his hands, Mulder made an abortive attempt to pull them from Alex's grasp, but his muscles refused to cooperate. There was a delicious lassitude creeping through him, muting the frantic voice in his mind that was screaming for him to escape, to run, to resist. Other sensations were also permeating his body, and he was unable to mask them in his current state of undress. The warning voice fell mute, horrified by his body's response, and dreading the moment when Krycek would realize what the slow movements of hands on bare skin were doing to his nervous system.

Alex rotated his fingers gently on the bruised and raw flesh of Mulder's wrists and arms, trying to frame his proposition in the most persuasive manner he could while still making it simple enough for Mulder to grasp the essentials, as drugged up as he was. His distracted gaze drifted down to his hands, satisfied with the effects of his ministrations, and he carefully unlocked the chains from Mulder's arms. There was no way the agent would be able to escape. While he was conscious, he was far from capable. As the chains fell away, he gathered them into a small pile to the side of Mulder's hips, bending over the other man's torso to push them against the wall. As he straightened, he noticed what the chain had been camouflaging. One of the drugs in his own particular devil's brew was a stimulant, to keep vital signs strong, and sometimes it acted as an aphrodisiac. From the look of Mulder's erection, this was one of those times.

"I had no idea you were so sensitive to drugs, *Fox*." Alex almost laughed, especially when he saw the mixture of embarrassment, rage and arousal in Mulder's glare. "Looks like later may be now, hm?"

With a wicked smile, keeping his eyes locked to Mulder's all the while, he slowly reached out and began to trace his fingertips along the semi- rigid flesh. Mulder reacted with an involuntary moan, his eyes shutting from either humiliation or denial, Alex wasn't sure which. Maybe both. As his own breath began to quicken, he shelved plans for trying to persuade the recalcitrant agent to join him in his proposition. There would be time for that, later. Right now, under his hands, was the only chance he'd ever get at fucking Fox Mulder. And he planned to make the most of it.

Mulder's hips were pushing lazily up toward Krycek's stroking hand, the lethargic movements gradually gaining strength as Krycek began stroking his chest with his free hand. His mouth fell slightly open, breathing coming in irregular gasps, as he tried to fight his arousal. Krycek leaned closer, caught up in the unwillingly wanton responses of the man under his curious hands. By now, Mulder's erection was straining against his palm, as Alex feathered delicate caresses over the slick skin of his chest. Stopping to scratch lightly over a nipple, he was delighted by the moan the caress evoked, and repeated it several times, alternating from one tight bud to the other. As he was continuing this delicious torture, his other hand roamed freely, circling the sensitive head of Mulder's penis, thumbing the crease along the top then tracing the veins along the shaft until he could roll his balls in the soft sac, eliciting one moan after another until Mulder was almost whimpering continuously.

The beleaguered agent finally managed to get his arms to cooperate, after a fashion, drawing them up and placing them against Krycek's chest, fully intending to push him away. The heat of his skin through the thin cotton shirt seemed to give his hands other ideas, however, and Krycek felt another pulse of arousal when Mulder's hands slid slowly up his chest to rest heavily at the sides of his neck. Taking it as encouragement, whether it had been or not, he quickly shrugged out of his shirt, careful not to dislodge Mulder's unsteady grip. As he backed away to unfasten his jeans, Mulder's hands slipped, the friction as his fingertips grazed lightly through his chest hair sending shivers up his spine. Sacrificing gentle exploration for the sake of speed and his own straining erection, he stripped off the rest of his clothing in near record time and moved back over Mulder's supine form.

As Alex began firmly caressing every inch of silky skin that he could reach, some part of Mulder's mind was watching in an odd mix of revulsion and unadulterated lust. He wanted to pull away, or at least protest, but his mind was awash with the drugs and the unusual sensations running over his body. With a mental shrug, he gave up the fight, his natural curiosity getting the better of him. The small part of his mind that was still relatively coherent sat in the corner and screamed with rage, while the rest of his being concentrated on the incredible sensation of Alex Krycek going down on him.

Krycek followed the path his hands had taken with his lips, teeth, tongue. Mulder tasted sweet and salty, tiny drops of pre-cum wetting his penis and sparkling in the soft dark curls scattered across his groin. Mixing with Krycek's saliva, it caused an almost unbearably erotic sensation as Alex slid his mouth over and around Mulder, stopping to nibble the tender flesh at the crown, nipping and soothing to the root, rolling first one testicle then the other into his hungry mouth, massaging the tender skin with the side of his tongue, engulfing as much of his cock as he could take and then humming deep in his throat. The pressure built until Mulder's head was swimming, and with an inarticulate cry his hips bucked, once, twice, three times. Alex drew back with one final pull, containing Mulder's climax the best he could, gathering the semen into his hands.

Before Mulder could catch his breath, the effects of his climax multiplied in his mind by the lingering effects of the drug, Alex abruptly rolled him over onto his stomach. He spread Mulder's cum thickly along the damp crease of the agent's ass, probing with first one, then two slender fingers at the small ring of muscle. Mulder tried to tense, the outraged corner of his mind protesting a little more loudly, when Krycek angled his fingertips to scrape lightly across Mulder's prostate. His scream caught them both by surprise, and after one instinctive clench, he released his hold on Alex's fingers. As he was trying to catch his breath from that unexpected jolt, he felt the blunt tip of Krycek's penis begin to work it's way deeply into his ass.

Krycek caught his breath as he carefully pushed his way in, pausing to allow Mulder a chance to adjust and to catch his own breath. The sensation was incredible, so hot, and so tight, like a velvet fist squeezing his cock. When he finally worked his entire length in, he paused, resting his sweaty chest against Mulder's broad back. Mulder whimpered slightly, but made no other move, and Krycek slid one hand slowly around Mulder's hip, searching for his penis. Mulder was already erect again, and Alex commenced a gentle rocking rhythm, stroking Mulder's length in concert with his own thrusts. The combined sensations overpowered Mulder, and with another scream that sounded suspiciously like a sob, he came again.

The rippling effect of his climax worked his internal muscles and he milked Krycek until, with a scream of his own, the other man came explosively, clutching Mulder's twitching penis and biting and sucking at the side of his neck. Mulder's hands worked convulsively on the carpet, whether trying to grab hold or push away, he couldn't have said. With one final convulsion, Krycek wrung one last jolt of semen from him, and he felt consciousness slip away. Alex felt the tense body underneath his own relax, and slowly withdrew, gasping from the release of pressure. He rolled Mulder over and checked his pulse, then leaned close to him. Ascertaining that he was indeed unconscious, he opened his mouth over Mulder's in a deep, wet kiss, plundering that full lower lip and taking the liberties he couldn't when the other man was awake and aware. Finally satiated, he drew clean towels from the kit at their feet and cleaned up the evidence of their activities. There was nothing he could do about the bite marks, true, but perhaps by the time Skinner and Scully arrived, they would have faded.

Of course, if they hadn't, that was just too damned bad.

 

She didn't like this. Didn't like it at all. The surprisingly light step of Director Skinner behind her should have reassured her, but it didn't. The fact that Alex Krycek had called him directly should have made her a little more confident. It didn't. All she could see was Melissa's still face, her mother's devastated eyes. Mulder, numb, and his mother, shattered. The desperate plea in her partner's face as he begged her to let him kill the rat bastard. Why hadn't she? Yeah. To keep Mulder from a murder charge. But maybe they could have beaten it. And maybe, just maybe, Missy would still be alive.

On the other hand, maybe not. That black lunged son of a bitch probably had a whole damned army of killers. Krycek was just her own personal nightmare. And Mulder's. Mustn't forget that ... and had to pray that he was still alive.

The light came on suddenly, blinding them both, They froze in identical crouches, and Alex Krycek's voice came at them from the whiteness, seeming by auditory illusion to be coming from every direction at once.

"Drop your weapons."

She risked a glance back at Skinner, hating the feeling of being pinned. He nodded almost imperceptibly, and she gingerly lowered her gun to the floor. If nothing else, she did still have the leg holster under her trousers. Like Mulder, she also got tired of losing her gun.

"I don't want to hurt you," the disembodied voice continued, "and I don't want you to hurt me."

"What do you want, Krycek?" Walter Skinner's voice sounded unusually loud, and incredibly cold. While he wouldn't admit it, except perhaps under torture, he had an almost paternal interest in Agents Mulder and Scully, and these mind games put them in jeopardy. They also pissed him off no end. He gradually straightened, and Scully followed his cue, squinting against the light.

"I want ... a truce."

Scully and Skinner exchanged incredulous glances.

"And we're supposed to trust you?" Dana was trying very hard to maintain her composure. "You kidnapped my partner. You beat up my boss." She didn't notice Skinner's involuntary wince. "You killed Mulder's father, you helped someone abduct me for God only knows what kind of heinous experiments, and you killed my sister!!" Her voice rose slightly with each word. Skinner reached out a restraining hand, and she took a deep gulp of air, trying to stop her body from shaking. Swallowing dryly, she tried again. "Why in Heaven's name should we trust you?"

There was a short silence, then a soft reply. "You have no choice."

Skinner felt his gorge rise, but managed to keep his anger from showing in his expression. Scully wasn't quite as adept. Her skin flushed until her features nearly matched her hair, and the two men could almost see sparks flying from her hair. Krycek finally stepped from the side of the building into the light. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he inclined his head.

"You don't have to trust me. I have something you want, and you have something I want. Straight trade. I want to cut a deal." He didn't smile, but his expression lightened. "And, for once, we both want the same thing."

"What's that, Krycek?" Scully was glad Skinner had asked the question. She didn't trust her own voice.

"Well, as to what we have ... I have Mulder. He's the bargaining chip, the bait to get you to come out here and listen to me." He put out a hand in a stopping motion at Scully's involuntary movement toward him. "He's all right." He paused, and she tried to decipher his expression, but couldn't. What the hell had he done with Mulder, she thought somewhat frantically. She couldn't lose him, too. He continued smoothly, "All I need is breathing space."

"For what?" That was her boss. Direct and to the point. Alex seemed to appreciate it as well.

"I'm working on payback here, trying to save my own ass. Cancerman screwed me, made the mistake of double-crossing me. He's on my ass now, and I need to know that when I take out the bastards that come after me, I'm only taking out his men. They'll be enough to handle. I don't want to have to deal with another fucking vendetta with your people."

In other words, Scully mused dully, no vengeance for Missy. For Bill Mulder. For me. For an instant, she allowed all of the hatred she felt for this man to shine from her eyes, and he took a small step backward, as if her enmity had actually slapped him. She smiled coldly at the cut on his face, evidence that Mulder had not gone quietly, then turned to face Director Skinner. He looked back at her calmly. This was her call. Her partner, her family, her life ... her choice. She nodded, once, sharply, before she could dwell on all the ramifications of her agreement.

"But not forever, you bastard," she hissed across the room at the still dark figure of Krycek. "When you've dealt with him, then you will deal with me."

He nodded his agreement, understanding everything she didn't say, then tossed something shiny at her feet. She knelt slowly and picked it up, her eyes never leaving him. He stepped back in to the shadows and the lights abruptly went out, leaving an afterimage of whiteness that resolved itself slowly into the shadows of the dimly lit warehouse. She scooped up her weapon and took the object over to a nearby window, turning it over in her hand, trying to read the writing on the small tag attached to a new, clean cut key. Finally deciphering the writing, she glanced over to Skinner.

"It's a storage unit in the Parkway. I know where it's at."

He nodded and followed her to her car.

As they sped toward the unit, she prayed that Krycek would actually keep his word, and not harm her partner. Skinner didn't say a word, letting her concentrate on her driving, forming and rejecting possibilities if this rescue started to blow up in their faces. As they drew near the storage units, she cut the lights and they silently exited the car.

He came around the corner high, and she came in low, but there was no one to ambush them there. With one quick look, Skinner nodded her on, and covered her back as she deftly flicked the lock. He pulled back on the heavy door and she bolted around the corner, keeping herself low to the ground to offer the smallest possible target. For no reason, because the small room contained no threat, just Mulder. Unconscious, Hands tied behind him. Dressed in soaked sweatpants and a ragged tee shirt. Skinner kept lookout while Scully quickly checked his vital signs and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Whatever Krycek gave him, it doesn't appear to be affecting his vitals. We'll have to get him to a hospital and get him checked out, though." Skinner nodded agreement and helped her wrestle her ungainly burden out to the car.

It was almost twelve hours before Mulder regained consciousness. The combination of drugs Krycek had used on him did no permanent damage, but did leave his memory hazy.

"Do you remember anything about where he held you, Agent Mulder?" There was no impatience in Director Skinner's tone, but since it was the fifth time he'd asked the question, there was some irritation in Mulder's reply.

"No, sir. I don't. He hit me with some sort of tranquilizer dart, then when I came to, he shot me up with a nice little mixture of his own. After that," his voice faded uncertainly, and Dana was convinced there was something he was not telling them. "... it all gets really fuzzy."

Skinner nodded acceptance, then sighed. "Well, he did keep his part of the bargain. I suppose."

"And we'll keep ours," Scully's voice was hard. "Until Cancerman is ... taken care of."

Skinner looked at her for a long moment, then turned to Mulder. "Get some rest, Agent Mulder." Turning on his heel, he started for the door.

"Sir?" Mulder's raspy question stopped him. "Thank you."

Skinner tightened his lips, then nodded once, and left the room. Dana watched him leave, then turned to her partner.

"What didn't you tell him, Mulder?"

He studied his hands for an endless moment, absently tracing the healing lacerations from the cuffs he'd been chained in. Finally he met her concerned gaze.

"Just ... a nightmare, Scully. Nothing unusual."

She accepted his quiet answer, determined not to pry if he wasn't ready. She reached across the hospital bed and laid a hand lightly on his bruised wrist. He rested his eyes on the small hand covering the marks of his abduction, and gave her a half smile. One day, though, she would know. One more mark against Alex Krycek, one more debt for him to pay. Once this truce was over, then all the markers would come due. And when their deal with the devil was over, she would make sure he paid.

 

_Runes_

"The artifacts are in place, sir."

"Good. Make sure he sees them. All of them. Once contact has been made, retrieve and destroy the evidence."

With a curt nod of dismissal, the slender, gray-headed man with the ever-present cigarette turned his back to his minion, staring out at the darkness of a late night in the city. There were no stars that he could see, they were too close to the seat of power for that, too many city lights drowning out the natural lights from the sky. He preferred it that way. The less he saw, the less he would be distracted. The less he would remember.

He stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette for long moments, wondering if this would be the time, if this information would finally defeat his enemy, his nemesis. His too-valuable-to-kill and too-irritating-to-leave-be wild card. Maybe, this time, Mulder would be stopped.

Somehow, he doubted it. But one could always hope.

 

The tip had come anonymously. The best ones always did, it seemed.

"Hey, Scully, take a look at this!"

His partner paused in her typing, looking over the tops of her glasses at him. His enthusiasm obviously wasn't contagious this morning.

"What is it, Mulder? Another hot lead from the National Trash-sifter?"

He shot her a mock wounded look, his eyes sparkling with anticipation, something he hadn't been feeling much since the last time Krycek had kidnapped him. His mind shied away from that particular memory and returned to the task at hand.

"No, this comes from our friend in high places." He turned the single sheet of paper over and over in his hands, staring thoughtfully at his partner's fiery red head, bent in concentration over her paperwork. "Maybe you're right. It's probably nothing." Folding it into a compact square and slipping it into his pocket, he continued, "Don't worry about it. I may sniff around a little later and see if there's anything to it."

It worked. With a long-suffering sigh, she hit the save button and swiveled around to face him. He managed not to grin at the mingled curiosity and humor he'd managed to provoke.

"Okay. I'll bite."

"Promise?" he cracked, his face lighting up with a mischievous smile.

"Mulll-der," her eyes threatened him, and he relented.

"Okay, here it is. Just an address, two words and a stone. The words are Tear and View, and the stone has the Viking symbol for Ansuz engraved on it."

She looked at him expectantly. "And?"

"And I think I recognize the address, Scully. It's right here in town. Neal Markham, runs a specialty shop full of esoteric stuff, mixture of science and the arcane. Everything from microscopes to Wiccan supplies. His specialty is exploration and divination."

"Sounds like a load of mumbo jumbo to me, Mulder. Supplying whom? What sort of exploration? Divining what?"

"Supplying information, Scully. Exploring the unknown, using the tools of science and a belief in the unbelievable. Divining the future." He shot her his very best 'Spooky' look. She didn't seem overly impressed, and he sobered. "Besides, he might be able to help us with the Viking word." She quirked a questioning brow at him and he explained, "Ansuz is a Rune symbol, one of a series of letters used in ancient Icelandic divination rituals. This particular rune means 'message', and is associated with the Norse God Loki."

She studied him for a moment. "You mean we're going off on a hunt for the Scandinavian version of Coyote?"

He cocked his head to the side. "You *have* been studying your Native American lore, haven't you?"

She shot him a killer glance and shrugged. "You're the division chief. Or at least that's what I'll tell Skinner." She powered down the computer and reached for her jacket. "And at this point, I'd take just about anything to get away from the autopsy paperwork."

He followed closely on her footsteps as they left the office. "Bored, Scully?"

"Extremely, Mulder."

"Well, we'll see what we can do about that." He grinned at her. She narrowed her eyes at him, glancing up at him over her shoulder.

"Gee. Can't wait."

 

The interior of the shop was not exactly the dark, dusty candle shop slash junk shop she was expecting. As Mulder shook hands with the proprietor, Scully hung back and took it all in, trying to pin down an overall impression. The store was small but meticulously maintained, bins and shelves full of what looked like a combination of scientific tools and occult paraphernalia. In one corner, magnifying glasses sat cheek by jowl with various colored candles, and bins held an assortment of various minerals and crystals. Several shelves boasted an arrangement of books by subject, Kip Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps sharing space with Shawna Vogel's Naked Earth, while further on Starhawk's Spiral Dance nudged Silver Ravenwolf's To Ride a Silver Broomstick. She browsed a bit further and picked up a hardcopy edition of Above Top Secret, by Timothy Good, all about how the government was covering up UFO sightings. She could begin to see why Mulder liked this place.

"Ah. A classic." The gentle voice of the owner brought her head up, and she smiled slightly at him.

Markham was a short, gently rounded man with curly mouse brown hair tied back in a bushy little ponytail at the base of his skull, disingenuous blue eyes peering through large framed, round eyeglasses. His neatly pressed shirt and clean, if faded, blue jeans made him look like an overaged college student, at least until you looked into his eyes. They reminded her a little of Mulder's eyes, a deep intelligence tempered by lively curiosity, and something very old lived in them. What her mother would call an old soul. And a kind one, from the way he was regarding her. Apparently, the he and Mulder had been friends for some time, judging by the warmth of their greetings.

"Undoubtedly," she returned with a minimum of sarcasm. They were joined by Mulder, his quick grin as he saw the title of the book she replaced on the shelf causing her to change the subject quickly. "So, do what can you tell us about this Ansuz?"

Neil thought for a moment, then reached for a small gray cloth-bound book from the shelf labeled "Divination Tools." Flipping rapidly through the pages, he nodded satisfaction at confirming his thoughts, and summarized for them.

"Ansuz. That's the Rune for receiving messages, signals, gifts. It warns you to expect the unexpected -- this Rune is the call to a new life. It's the first of the thirteen Runes in the Cycle of Initiation, which focus directly on self-change, and address our need to integrate unconscious motive with conscious intent. It's a signal to explore the depths of life. To look beneath the surface." His concerned eyes darted back and forth between the two partners. "But there's another side to it. If the Rune is reversed, it can mean that a sense of futility may be overwhelming. Ansuz, reversed, means 'consider the uses of adversity'." He stared at Mulder for a moment, then reached out to gently lay a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Is this message involved in your search, somehow?"

"Maybe, Neil." She watched him as he stared off into the middle distance, his mind ticking over the possibilities.

"Thank you, Mr. Markham," Dana finally said, getting tired of waiting for her partner to come back from wherever he had gone. "We appreciate the information."

"Yeah, thanks, Neil." Mulder sounded sincere, if distracted.

The shorter man nodded and smiled at them both, extending a hand to shake Scully's. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Scully. As for you," he growled softly at Mulder, "Don't be such a stranger!"

Mulder seemed to snap out of his daze for a moment, and grinned abashedly at Markham. "I'll try," he replied, and Markham shook his head resignedly. As they left the store, Scully glanced back at the shopkeeper. He had pulled some small, white, rectangular stones out of a soft felt bag, and was staring at them with an odd look on his face. He almost seemed ... afraid.

 

A shadow watched as the two agents left the small shop. It moved when they did, staying beyond their range of sight, but never losing track. Their destinies were intertwined, although the two agents might not realize it. The shadow waited, knowing that his best chance at revenge, and at finally walking in the sunlight again, lay with these two he followed.

 

"Okay, so we have the Ansuz. Now what do we do with it?"

His partner's impatient question finally snapped Mulder out of his reverie. They were sitting at a table in one of their favorite lunch spots, a small diner within walking distance of FBI headquarters. Dana picked determinedly at her salad, while Mulder played with his BLT, absently poking at the ends of the bacon with a french fry.

"While you were checking out the book selection, I asked Neil about the possible meanings he could see behind the combination of words. He didn't seem very comfortable with his conclusions."

"Are you going to share?" she prompted when he fell silent. He dropped the fry in disgust and wiped his hands on his napkin.

"Well, it's a little twisted."

"When is it not?" she asked with a half grin, and he just shook his head at her.

"Neil seems to think that the two words in conjunction with Ansuz could have two meanings, polar opposites. One is that it's a call to action, an invitation to finally find the answers I've been looking for, and more recently, that you've been looking for as well. The information we'll find will be unexpected and may be dangerous, but will shed new light on our search. Also, it will be open to interpretation, and some interpretations may be dangerous. Tear could either be interpreted as a rending, a dissolution, or an indication of loss or grief."

He paused, trying to find a way to say this more clearly, and she waited for him, keeping her questions in check until he had finished. "Or, if the Rune is meant in the reverse, it could mean that we may hit a dead end that makes us doubt ourselves, and the way we see things. If we don't keep the channels of communication open, we could end up destroying our partnership somehow."

"So, you're saying that he said that this message could either mean that we're about to find the answers to all our questions, or a big lie that will make us want to give up." Her dry tone didn't fool him. He nodded cautiously. "So, like most prophecies, it could mean everything, or nothing. Hmm. Sounds about right for something you got from Mr. X." She popped the last bite of carrot in her mouth, and slid her fork across her plate. Swallowing delicately, she pushed her chair back. "Well, Mulder, it's been an ... interesting morning. But I have autopsy reports to do. Coming back to the office with me?"

He met her sparkling, unconvinced blue eyes and sighed. Obviously, she would take a bit more convincing. "Sure, Scully." He tossed some bills on the table and joined her as she left the restaurant. Perhaps it was slim, but he had a gut feeling about this one. And for all their nonscientific grounding, his hunches were very seldom wrong.

 

The second package arrived on his doorstep the next morning, wrapped in his morning paper. A single small white stone with an odd black marking on it, wrapped in a piece of paper torn from the newspaper and highlighted with a yellow pen.

"Neil Markham, 41, died in an apparent robbery attempt last night at his small store ..." Mulder closed his eyes in pain when he read the snippet, then he bundled the newspaper, stone and torn scrap into a tight ball and retreated into his bedroom to get dressed. He had lost a friend, and he had a horrible feeling it was somehow his fault.

 

Scully was not surprised to see Mulder working furiously at the computer when she arrived at the office at nine am. She'd seen the small item in the morning paper about Markham's death and knew that Mulder would be blaming himself. She didn't waste her breath trying to convince him that it was undoubtedly a random act of violence, probably by some drug addict looking for money for a fix. Instead, she settled into her chair and addressed her partner.

"What have you found?"

He answered without looking up from the computer screen. "Looks to the cops like a regular burglary. Neil had an anti-theft surveillance camera set up and I viewed the footage this morning." At her slight sound of surprise, he glanced at her momentarily before staring back at the screen. "I pulled a few strings over at Metro. They id'ed the guy as a two time loser with a record half an inch thick."

"But?" She could hear it, implied if not made explicit in his words.

"But the timing sucks, Scully." Finally, he stopped scrolling through the information on his screen and faced her. "And Neil didn't exactly follow his standard routine after we left there yesterday."

"In what way?"

"He closed up shop less than a half hour after we left, and was gone for almost two hours. When he returned, he kept the shop open until almost eight, and he normally closes at six. The robber didn't appear to make any demands, just walked into the store, pulled out a gun, and shot him at close range. Then, almost as if it was an afterthought, he emptied the cash register." His voice sounded tired, and she could tell that he was trying very hard to shelve the grief over the loss of his friend until he could make sense of Markham's death.

"Have you been able to figure out where he went?"

"Not yet." He stood up and shrugged into his suit jacket. "Unless those autopsy reports are calling your name, Scully, I think it's time we did some canvassing."

"And how are we going to justify this to the locals, Mulder?" she asked as she reached for her own coat.

"Ties into an ongoing investigation, Scully," he returned, reaching into his pocket and tossing a small stone to her. As she caught it and turned it over to study the strange marking on the back, he continued, "Seems Ansuz has a friend. And I think Neil got caught in the backwash."

She studied the marking, a single vertical line intersected one third of the way from the top by a shorter line angled downward at about a forty five degree angle, looking rather like a lopsided X standing on one leg. She slipped the stone into her own pocket and followed her partner out the door.

 

The man sat alone in his small, dark room, flipping a stone across the table in front of him, sliding it into the side of the ashtray. He snorted softly at the imagery behind the symbol on the stone, and smiled when he pictured Mulder's reaction. So far, everything was going exactly as planned. It was about time. He thought of his other small problem, then shrugged it off. There would be time to deal with his prodigal later. First, he would destroy Mulder, quietly, without fuss or fanfare. Then he would deal with ... his other irritant.

 

It hadn't been as difficult to reconstruct Markham's final day as Mulder feared it might be. There were witnesses in the neighborhood that were actually willing to talk, and Neil hadn't made much of an effort to cover his tracks.

"So, he met this guy, showed him something that may have been anything from a rock to a Ping-Pong ball depending on whom you question, seemed to plead with him about something, took a package with what looked like extreme reluctance, and returned to his shop, where he seemed distracted all day until a punk walked into his shop, an apparent target of opportunity, and murdered him."

Scully's precise rendering of their findings settled it in Mulder's mind. Time to go search the back room of that store.

"If it was worth killing him over, then it's worth a little B &amp; E." His half-muttered words drew Scully's attention from her notepad, and she looked inquisitively at Mulder. "I need to find that package, Scully." She stared at him, then shoved her pad back in her purse.

"No." He started to protest, and she shook him off. "We do."

 

Someone had beaten them to the punch. The back room of the store was a shambles, once they had managed to circumvent the now compromised security system and pick the lock on the back door. Whoever had done it hadn't wanted to draw attention to themselves, because they had reset the locks before they left. Mulder looked over the wreckage and cursed under his breath. Someone had *really* wanted to find that package. With a sideways glance at his partner, he took a deep breath and dug in. Maybe, somehow, the previous intruders had missed it.

Two hours, a bruised shin, several curses and a cut finger later, he was willing to believe there wasn't anything left to find. Looking up from a spilled box of aromatic oils that was rapidly giving him a headache, he realized that Scully was no longer in the back room. Leaving the smelly mess behind, he went off to search for her, finally finding her curled up on the floor next to the bookshelves.

"Still fascinated by the book selection, hm, Scully?"

She smiled at his gentle teasing, then drew the stone he had tossed to her earlier out of her pocket. Reaching up to hand it to him, she opened the same small gray book Markham had checked the previous day.

"Listen to this, Mulder." He leaned against the doorjamb and watched her, as she kept her attention focused on the little book. "It's called Nauthiz. Constraint. Necessity." She looked up at him briefly. "Pain." At the darkening in his deep hazel eyes, she looked back down at the page. "It deals with learning to deal with severe constraints. Represents the obstacles we create for ourselves as well as those others put up around us. It's role is to identify our shadow, the dark, repressed side of ourselves, where our growth is stunted, resulting in weakness. Examine whatever it is in our lives that attracts hardship or misfortune." At his suddenly restless movement, she looked up at him. "Stop it, Mulder. Markham's death was not your fault." He looked as though he might argue, then gestured for her to continue. She looked back at the passage she had marked with her finger.

"It urges restraint. Reconsider plans. Persevere. It's a time to restore balance, if not harmony. Rectification, before progress. And get this -- reversed, as part of the Cycle of Initiation, it's considered the great teacher disguised as the one who brings pain and limitation. Only by bringing the greatest darkness can it make us aware of the light within. It talks about something within being disowned and then creating havoc, and that there is a need to undergo the dark side of your passage and bring it to the light. Controlling anger, restraining impulses, keeping your faith firm... You know, Mulder, it almost sounds as though someone was telling you not to give up. And just maybe, to be careful."

"Maybe. I thought you didn't believe in this stuff, Scully."

She closed the book, then slipped it into her pocket. "As a method of determining the future, I don't. However, it would appear that someone is sending you messages. They're your cryptic friends, Mulder. What do you think they're trying to tell you?"

He didn't answer her question, his attention caught be the corner of a small brown package peeking out from under a dust cloth below the physics books. "Maybe they're telling me to keep looking, Scully," he replied as he pulled the small package out into the open. They shared a look over the top of the package, then quietly gathered their things and slipped back out the rear door.

 

The shadow watched them as they walked softly down the deserted alley to their car, parked on the street around the corner. He had been in the side room as they had searched, knowing that they would find what had been planted, and hoping that they could lead him to the one responsible for planting it. As he considered the words he'd heard read out in Dana Scully's clear voice, he couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped. "Repressed shadow of himself, hm? That's one way to describe me, I guess." The sound of an engine broke the stillness of the night, and he made his way to his own vehicle. There was no hurry. He knew where they were going. After all, that's what a shadow did, wasn't it? Follow?

 

Mulder didn't see the resigned shudder his partner gave at the state of his apartment. By now, he would have been used to it. Laying the package on the table next to the window, he froze. She noticed, and came rapidly to his side, eyes sweeping for indications of danger. There was nothing, but another small white stone, with another strange symbol on it. She pulled the book from her pocket, but before she could find the symbol in the display on the front, her partner's hoarse voice stopped her.

"Hagalaz."

"What?" He was staring at the stone as if it was a snake, and his voice sounded curiously dead.

"Elemental disruption. I recognize this one, Scully." Leaving the package on the table, he gingerly picked up the stone and moved to slump onto the couch. "You have the other two?"

Nodding assent, she dug the previously received stones from her pocket and handed them to him. With precise movements, he lay them side by side, in the order that he had been given them.

"It's a forecast, Scully. The past, the present and the future. Ansuz represents the past, the beginning of the change, the surprising directions. Nauthiz stands for what is happening right now, identifying the shadow of myself, dealing with the pain. And Hagalaz points to the future."

When he stared at the stones and didn't continue, she reached for the book again. As she was finding the page to try and figure out what had spooked her partner so badly, he started to speak again.

"Change. Liberation. Freedom. It's the Great Awakener, tearing away all your ideas of who you are. Shaking your foundations. Beyond your control." He paused again, and swallowed heavily. "Radical discontinuity."

"Are you telling me you *believe* in this stuff, Mulder? You won't believe in miracles, even when they're right in front of your face, but you think the stones are talking to you?"

Her tone gradually increased until by the end of her words she was almost yelling at him. Her agitation penetrated his distraction, and he rested his gaze on her wearily.

"I don't know, Scully. I guess, when we open the box, then we'll figure out what they've been trying to tell us. Or at least what the person behind these stones is trying to tell us."

With grim determination he rose and went to the box. Gritting his teeth, unable to explain the dread that was pooling in his stomach, he ripped the paper covering from the outside and pulled the flaps back from the top of the box. After staring at the inside of the box until Scully thought he was never going to remove the contents, he reached in and removed a thick manila envelope. Ripping the side of the envelope out, he gently dumped the contents onto the table top. As the images from the pictures began to make sense to his stunned eyes, he gave a soft moan.

"Samantha." A world of pain in a single whispered word.

Scully pushed at his arm until she could see what he had discovered. Several black and white photographs of a young woman, perhaps sixteen, on what looked like an examination table. Her hair was dark, cut short, feathering against the sides of her head. She was painfully thin, with scars running along her exposed arms and legs, her eyes sunk deeply into their sockets, lines of pain carved deeply into her forehead and bracketing her mouth. Her limbs were bound in some sort of shackle, essentially chaining her to the table. She was, without a doubt, dead. And from the look of terror in her eyes, her death had not been an easy one. Scully shuffled through the horrifying pictures, and bumped a small specimen case that had been buried under the photographs. It was attached to a medical information sheet, and as she scanned the test results, she couldn't hold back her own dismayed gasp.

"What?" His voice sounded rough, and she looked up to see the tracks of tears along his cheeks. His eyes were haunted, but they held hers steadily. She swallowed, her throat hurting, and took a deep breath.

"These are soft tissue test results, Mulder. And the specimen ... is listed as a cross section of a human pancreas. The results show evidence of cancerous growth, to such an extent that all the internal organs were compromised." She swallowed again, her own nightmares coming to the fore, before forcing down her demons and turning to her partner. "This could be a set-up, Mulder. In fact, it undoubtedly is. Someone is trying to get to you-"

"And doing a damned good job of it, Scully." He looked like he was going to throw up. He stared fixedly at the photos, seeing his sister's face, and she reached over to gently touch his arm.

"It's not proof, Mulder. Not until it's tested." With decisive movements, she scooped up the photos and the specimen case, along with the medical sheets, and stuffed them carefully back into the manila envelope. "Come on." He looked at her blankly, and she gestured to the door. "Forensic lab. I want to run some of my own tests, see just what's in this sample case."

"And a DNA test, Scully?" he queried softly.

She checked, then nodded at him, trying to reassure him with her eyes, knowing that was impossible. "And a DNA test, Mulder. If this was from your sister, we'll find out."

 

They didn't make it to the car before they were jumped. Scully fell under a vicious blow to the side of the head from a swinging pipe, and Mulder managed to shoot one of the assailants before the other knocked his gun away with enough force to break two fingers. As the first assailant raised his pipe to bring it down on Mulder's face, a third man grabbed the envelope and began to run. Before the pipe could connect, another gunshot rang out from the side of Mulder's building. Mulder looked up to see Alex Krycek looking down at him.

"Truce still in effect, I take it," he managed to croak out, and Krycek grinned fiercely at him for a moment before gesturing to his fallen partner.

"Take care of your Scully, Mulder. I have someone to follow."

As he turned to run after the man who had escaped with the envelope, with the photos and the evidence, Mulder rolled to his side and looked after his enemy. "Thanks. You bastard." He whispered the words, then pulled himself painfully upright and leaned over Scully. Time enough to think of the ramifications later. First he had to take care of his partner.

 

He had slipped some of the photos into a file on his table, for contingency's sake, but sometime when he was at the hospital getting his fingers taped and checking on Scully's condition, someone had broken into his place and taken them. All of them. Once again, no evidence. But his eidetic memory wouldn't let him forget the images burned into his brain. As he sat in the empty office, absently shuffling a file back and forth on his desk, his mind replayed his latest conversation with Scully, stuck in the hospital with a severe concussion.

"Photos can be faked, Mulder. You have no proof that she was Samantha."

"She looked ... god, Scully, if she wasn't, then she was enough like her to be her twin."

"Or her clone." He looked at her sharply and she shrugged, wincing when it sent a bolt of pain up her skull. "It's happened before."

He stared at the floor. "I guess this means I'm stuck in Nauthiz, still boxing at shadows."

"It'll come, Mulder," she whispered. "Give it time."

He reached over and gently touched her shoulder. "Get some rest, Scully." She arched a brow at him, and he tried to look reassuring. "I'm okay. Really." She didn't look like she believed him, but she also didn't stop him when he walked out of the room.

The discordant sound of the telephone ringing brought him back to the present. Dropping the file, he reached for the receiver.

"Mulder."

There was silence for a moment, then "I lost him."

He settled back into his chair, resting the phone in the crook of his neck, balanced by his shoulder. Fingers moved absently to rub lightly over the lacing of thin white scars on his wrists, courtesy of the man on the other end of the line.

"Is that bad, Krycek?" He couldn't keep the mixed emotions from his voice ... hope, that somehow the evidence might have made it's way back to him, hatred of the man who could have been the one to get it for him, a confusing brew of anger and embarrassment and arousal and disgust that he fought down determinedly. "What would you have done with it, anyway?"

"Traced it to the source, Mulder." There was a heavy silence, then Krycek spoke again. "I want the son of a bitch as much as you do. Maybe even more. He's not actively trying to kill you." Mulder inclined his head, conceding the point with a muffled "true." Alex continued, "How's Scully?"

"She'll live." He didn't want to say this, but he had to. "Thanks. Now tell me why."

"Why what, Mulder?" Krycek could play dumb with the best.

"Why'd you shoot him? If you'd just gone after the third man, you wouldn't have wasted the time to save me, and you might not have lost him."

There was another long moment of tense silence, before he finally got his answer.

"I ... couldn't let him hurt you." Before Mulder could reiterate his 'why?', Krycek cut the connection. Mulder let the receiver drop into his hand, slowly reaching out to cradle it, thinking about the ramifications of Krycek's confession. Balance. Restitution. His shadow.

Rising from his chair to catch up his coat, he put thoughts of the conversation from his mind. He had to go pick up Scully. He couldn't afford to be distracted. He had to find out where the Runes had come from, and where the evidence had gone. But in the corner of his mind, a voice whispered 'radical discontinuity ... your future." He knew he couldn't ignore it for long. But for right now, it had to wait. He had truths to discover. And pain to work through. His shadow would have to wait.

 

_Identity_

His breath pounded through his body, fighting with his rapidly beating heart to fill his head with the rhythm of terror. They were close now, closer than they had ever been, and he rounded the corner and flew into the alley, so intent on his pursuers that he didn't see the protruding board on the side of the window, didn't see anything until the sudden sharp pain that filled the world with sparkling blackness.

"Hey, mister, you okay? Holy shit, he hit that hard!"

"I'll call 911, jesusgod he's bleedin' all over the place-"

"I wonder if he's dead? I think he's dead!"

"Sure as hell ain't movin'!"

The two men in the long dark coats saw the small knot of street people gathering around the inert form of their prey, and blended into the blackness. They would find him again. Now was not the right time.

His sense of timing was fortuitous. He came muzzily awake as the paramedics were tending to him.

"Sir? Can you tell us your name, sir?"

Right. No id. SOP for a man on the run. His thoughts were fuzzy, but some flickering sense of self preservation reminded him that he couldn't use his own name. Couldn't risk them finding him.

"Mulder." His vision was clearing, but he had an hellacious headache. Had to get away, had to get away, mustn't get caught ... with a sudden jerk, he raised his hand to stop the paramedic from lifting him to the stretcher and taking him to the waiting ambulance. He rolled swiftly away and to his feet, and the paramedic grasped his upper arm to steady him. "No. No hospitals."

"Sir, you've taken a severe blow to the head, we have no way of telling how badly you've been in-"

"No!" With a nearly inarticulate growl, he shoved the man violently away from him and began to run, ignoring the pounding in his head and the concerned shouts echoing in the alleyway behind him. Quicker than any of the witnesses would have expected from an injured man, he twisted between the buildings and dove down the stairwell of a nearby train station. He disappeared before the stunned onlookers could react.

No one bothered him on the train. He must have looked as bad as he felt. Blood matted the thick, soft hair at the side of his head, and his vision was fading in and out. He had to find a bolthole, but he couldn't remember where he should go. He knew a place, but it wasn't safe. Forcing himself to concentrate, another address wavered into his grasping mind, and he held to it. They'd never think to look for him there. He didn't know why, because right at the moment he didn't know who was after him, couldn't remember why he was running, but he knew this other place would be safe.

Swaying off the train, he slipped into the crowd at the station, using the walls for balance, moving with singleminded determination toward his destination. He could rest when he got there. Not before.

The pain just got worse as he made his way, using some sort of instinct he hadn't known he possessed, through the darkening streets to his safe place. He fumbled with the side door, rested along the way, tried to catch his breath and his bearings, forced himself to ignore the increasing unsteadiness of his sight and the pounding in his head. He stopped at the door, stared with fierce concentration at the 42 hanging there on the painted wood. Then he realized, along with no wallet, he had no keys. Falling back on that instinct for survival, his right hand shakily extracted a compact black leather case from his hip pocket. Selecting a slender pick by touch, since his vision was almost completely obscured now, he slipped it into the door and let muscle memory lead his fingers through the necessary motions. With a nearly silent snick, the knob turned, and he pushed it carefully open. He couldn't think why, but somehow he knew that caution was needed here. Safe, yet not safe.

The apartment was dark, and quiet, only the gurgling fish tank breaking the stillness. He tried to walk across the floor toward the couch, but found that his legs had turned liquid, and he sank to his knees. The picks fell from his hand to scatter on the scruffy carpet, and he reached out to break the fall he could feel coming. The hand landed against the side of the worn couch, and his head came to rest there a moment later. He was already unconscious.

 

"Ah, c'mon, Scully, it's not that bad. I did clean the apartment last Labor day, after-" He broke off abruptly as he noticed that his apartment door was open a crack. With a quick hand motion, he signaled his partner. She drew her weapon and took up a defensive stance at one side of the door, as he stood poised for entry at the other side. Unspoken signals flowed between the two, a silent countdown, then they came in with one movement, he high, she low. Nothing.

"Owch!"

He was at her side immediately, holding her hand to the light, examining the small puncture wound on the side of her palm where she had rested it against the carpet. Looking down, they saw the scattered tools, slivers of silver in the dim light. Following the trail, guns at the ready, they came further into the room, checking at the sight of the dark mass slumped motionless against the front of the couch.

Scully flicked the lights on as Mulder came fully into the room, bending to push the supine body onto it's back. The head lolled freely, and Mulder drew in a breath, shocked at both the identity of his uninvited caller and the trail of blood moving sluggishly down the side of his face to soak into the soft material where he had been laying.

"Who is it?" Concern colored Scully's voice as she moved to stand next to her partner. "Oh!" The concern was tempered now with disgust and disdain.

Mulder knelt beside the unconscious man, taking his pulse, feeling the clammy skin of his forehead. Scully set her emotions aside for the moment and ran a professional eye over Krycek. He didn't look good at all. She managed to quash the uncharitable thought that it wouldn't be much of a loss if he just died, and tried not to think about the fact that the only reason she could think of to wish him to live was that getting rid of the body might prove inconvenient.

"Get me two wet cloths, please, Mulder. One warm and one cold."

He looked askance at her. "Shouldn't we get him to a hospital?"

"Maybe later," she replied, taking off her coat and bending to examine Krycek more thoroughly. "I'd like to avoid that if possible. Knowing your past history with him, we might have a hard time explaining this to the police."

He rummaged in the bathroom for a moment before returning to her with the washcloths. She took the cold one and gestured to Krycek. Mulder began to gently wipe the blood from his face with the warm one. Scully carefully laid the cold cloth over Krycek's forehead.

"But you could alibi me, Scully," he smiled winningly at her, and she ignored him. "How about we dump him at an emergency room and leave before they can get our number?"

Actually, she mused, that plan had possibilities. Before she could respond, Krycek gave a soft moan, and Mulder stopped his ministrations to peer closely at his pale face. Krycek's eyes opened slowly, painfully, and he stared at Mulder wide-eyed. Scully took a small pen light from her pocket and grasped Krycek's chin, pulling his face around to her view with surprising gentleness. He didn't seem to want to look away from Mulder, but the sharp light distracted him, and he winced.

"Well, concussion, certainly. He'd do well with x-rays to see if he has a skull fracture."

"No!" His voice was rusty-sounding, but the panic was evident. "Please! No hospitals." He tried to push himself away from them, but only fell weakly against the couch. The partners exchanged glances.

"He sounds like you, Mulder," Scully commented dryly. Mulder curled his lip in response, but was distracted by Krycek, who put his hand out to rest it lightly against Mulder's chest.

"You're Mulder?" The name rang bells, but he couldn't remember why.

"Don't be a moron, of course I am," Mulder growled testily, snorting slightly in disgust. Scully narrowed her eyes to glare distrustfully at Krycek, but he didn't seem to notice. "Something wrong with your eyes?"

"I'm safe here." The nonsequitur prompted another exchange of glances between Mulder and Scully.

"Look, we have a truce, but that doesn't mean my apartment suddenly becomes your safe house, Krycek."

Mulder's face was carefully expressionless, but his voice was far from welcoming. Scully watched the two men closely and wondered, for the umpteenth time, what had happened between the two of them when Krycek had kidnapped Mulder and used him as a bargaining chip to strike this shaky truce. The dynamics between them were changed, somehow, but she couldn't quite figure out how. Before she could get very far into that train of thought, Krycek startled both of them by reaching out and tracing the side of Mulder's cheek with the back of his index finger. Mulder reared back, staring at him with an indecipherable look crossing his features.

"Who's Krycek?" Alex Krycek asked in a perfectly reasonable tone.

Mulder laughed, a short, sharp bark that wasn't very amused. Scully didn't. Alex looked from one to the other with an innocent, vaguely confused look on his face. Mulder noticed that Scully wasn't laughing, and scowled at her.

"Please don't tell me you think he doesn't know who he is." Mulder's tone was skeptical.

"I'm Krycek?" Alex sounded more confused, and slightly frightened.

"Maybe he doesn't." Scully ran her fingers gently over the lump on the side of Krycek's head, and he yelped in pain and tried to draw back. The color drained completely from his face and he swayed. Mulder instinctively reached forward to steady him, and Krycek leaned trustingly up against him. "One thing is certain. He's not acting like himself."

Mulder stared at the man snuggled into his shoulder and had to agree with her. "Uhm, maybe the hospital after all?"

At that, Krycek sat as close to upright as he could, and tried to scoot away. "No, uh-uh, no way." He lifted a shaky hand up to his face, and moaned softly. "Must've been some good vodka."

Mulder laid a hand on his shoulder to stop the swaying that was making him slightly seasick, and turned to his partner. "Okay, Doctor Scully. Your call."

"I think we need to visit my friend Marsha." Both men stared at her, one much more focused than the other. "She has a private clinic. With an xray machine and a CT scanner. He needs skull xrays and a brain scan."

Mulder nodded, and Krycek tried to shrug, but the movement send him sideways. With another soft moan he buried his face in Mulder's shoulder, burrowing like a child into the big warm body holding him upright. Mulder stiffened, looking at Scully for help. She shook her head, then reached for Krycek's right arm and motioned for Mulder to help her.

"Come on, let's get him moving." Krycek lifted his head woozily to frown at her, and she found herself reassuring him. "I have a key to the back entrance. I don't want to be associated with you any more than you want to be seen with us."

They wrestled Krycek none too gently down the elevator and into Mulder's car, thankful that the neighbors were elsewhere or otherwise occupied. When he was finally settled, Scully took the keys and headed for the small clinic. Mulder turned half sideways in his seat and watched their passenger, not that he would be making any sudden moves. Krycek's head was resting against the back of the seat, his eyes half open, a very puzzled look on his face. As his eyes met Mulder's, the agent was shocked to see something that looked like hurt feelings in them. Krycek murmured something, and Mulder leaned over the seat to catch the words.

"Don't you like me?" A plaintive little cry. Mulder looked at him as if he'd lost his mind, and turned to the front abruptly.

"A brain scan is probably a good idea, Scully." She threw him a questioning look and he jerked his head toward the back seat. "I think his brain is scrambled."

 

Scully had her back to him, conferring with the tall, slender blonde woman who had then poked and prodded and clicked away at him for the nearly an hour. He couldn't believe how still he'd had to lay for the cat scan, or MRI, or whatever the hell it was they'd called it. He also didn't know where Mulder was, and for some reason that was making him anxious.

"Mulder?" His voice sounded weak. He frowned. He wasn't weak. He didn't know much about himself, but he knew he wasn't weak. His train of thought, such as it was, was interrupted by the lanky agent's entrance. He grinned with relief, and Mulder looked at him distrustfully. The grin faded slightly, but the relief remained.

"Hi." Softly. Glad he was back. "Where've you been?"

"Checking your back trail." Krycek raised one brow inquisitively, then winced at the pain in his scalp. "I wanted to make sure you hadn't brought any unwanted company. So," he continued, inclining his head toward the two women studying the xrays on a lighted screen, "What's the verdict?"

"I dunno. They're not talking to me." &lt;but maybe they'll talk to you&gt; He didn't know why Scully hated him so much, but she made it pretty obvious that she did.

"Scully?" She broke off her conversation, and she and Marsha turned to the waiting men. "How's he doing?"

"Looks like a simple skull fracture, Mulder," Scully informed him, ignoring the whistling breath Krycek took in at the news. "No complications that we can find. The MRI showed no significant soft tissue injury, and there were no signs of epidural or subdural bleeding. Possible bruising."

"He should be in a hospital for observation," Marsha interjected.

"No!" exploded from Alex. "No hospitals!" Mulder reached down and laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"How long does he need to be, uhm, observed?" Mulder didn't sound happy, but at least he wasn't advocating hospitalization.

"Twelve to twenty four hours." Scully's voice was pensive. "You know, we may be able to pull this off."

"Pull what off, Scully?" Now Mulder was edging toward distrustful with his partner, too. He didn't like the speculative gleam in her big blue eyes.

"We just wrapped the Kolsack case, Mulder. All that's left is some paperwork. Skinner won't mind if we take a little time off and recuperate. We both have plenty of accrued vacation time."

"And do what?" Outright suspicion now.

"Watch over him."

"Why?" Mulder sounded almost angry. Krycek's looked from one to the other, Marsha forgotten on the sidelines, feeling like a spectator at a tennis match. "Why can't we just take him to the hospital and dump him there?"

"Hey." Alex felt the need to protest, but neither partner was paying any attention to him, so he subsided and watched the rest of the argument with interest.

"Because he wouldn't be safe." Krycek's ears perked up at this. Maybe she'd say something that would tell him why he was running like a buck in hunting season.

"Why the hell not?" Mulder sounded genuinely puzzled now. "You don't honestly buy this amnesia story, do you?"

"Actually, yes." She glanced at Marsha, who nodded her agreement. "The diagnosis is retrograde amnesia, extending for some period before the onset of the injury. We won't know until we talk to him just how far back it goes and how comprehensive it is. He has the other symptoms of severe concussion as well, the dizziness, blurred vision," she paused and looked at the wide green eyes staring at her guilelessly through a thicket of black lashes. "Confusion," she finished dryly.

"And how long will this last?" Mulder asked reluctantly, sparing a glare for the man lying between them. Krycek shivered. He'd like the answer to that one himself.

"Well, the memory gap should shrink gradually over time. Depending on related factors such as stress and his willingness to remember, he may never remember everything. And if the symptoms persist, his recovery may be delayed. Everyone's body reacts somewhat differently to an injury of this nature." Marsha was sympathetic. He smiled at her in appreciation and she colored slightly.

"So if we send him out like this," Mulder began and Scully finished "He'd be a sitting duck."

Krycek gulped. Wrong game, but it was still hunting season. And he didn't have a clue why, or who was behind the gun.

Using some sort of unspoken communication that Krycek couldn't decipher, Scully and Mulder turned as one to the blonde doctor. "We'll be right back, Marsha," Scully smiled. Marsha nodded in return, and turned back to her xrays. Krycek watched her back for a moment, enjoying the hint of curves barely visible under the long lab coat, then cleared his throat lightly.

"Thank you." A hint of shyness playing with the words.

She turned to him then, giving him a half smile and cocking her head in question at him.

"For doing these tests and everything. I really didn't want to go to the hospital." He gave her his very best smile. She almost visibly melted. The effect should have surprised him but for some reason didn't.

"Why are you so afraid?" Her voice was gentle, and he started to reply without thinking, then realized that something was holding him back. And it wasn't just the lack of memory. He had been going to lie, as instinctively and naturally as breathing, only he couldn't remember the truth that he was trying to hide so he couldn't craft a logical lie. So he lay there, mouth slightly agape, with an arrested expression in his eyes. She misread him completely.

"Well, I tried. Sometimes, if an amnesiac is asked normal questions, he will reply without thinking, and memories might return that way. I guess it's a little too soon for that. There's one thing you don't want to do, though, and that's try to force it. Let it come back to you naturally. Give yourself some time. A skull fracture is a serious injury."

He started to nod, and stopped at the shooting pain in his head.

"No sharp movements, either," she added with a sympathetic smile.

Mulder watched from the doorway as Krycek effortlessly charmed the doctor and turned to Scully with a snort of disgust. "I suppose you want me to keep him?" He made Krycek sound like an unwanted stray.

"Well, I have to finish up the autopsy paperwork from the Kolsack case, and there are some details to straighten up with the lab... there's something else, too."

He waited for a moment, and when she didn't finish, he prompted her gently, "What's that?"

She took a deep breath. "He seems to respond better to you. This could be our chance to learn what he knows. Maybe when he starts to remember you could get some information from him on Cancerman."

"Pump him for information as he remembers it, hm?"

"You're the psychologist, Mulder. If anyone can help a man put his memories back together it would be you. Just consider it a sort of profile. And if we get something usable on Cancerman and his operation-"

"-so much the better. Okay, Scully, I'll do it." His face told her he wouldn't like it.

"Mulder?" Her hand on his arm stopped him as he turned to rejoin Krycek and Marsha in the exam room. "Is there ... anything you want to talk about? From when Krycek kidnapped you? I mean, I know he saved your life a few months back, in the Markham case, but I don't know if-"

"No." The harsh word, coupled with the completely shuttered expression on Mulder's face, stopped her words. But it was the mixture of pain and denial in his eyes that made her drop her hand from his arm and allow the subject to stay closed. He glanced at the man on the table and took a deep breath, then re-entered the room. Krycek stopped mid-word in his flirtation with Marsha and looked at Mulder with barely concealed anxiety.

"So, uhm, what now?"

"Now, we go home."

"Great. Where's home?" Alex's forced cheerful tone didn't quite hide the fear.

"Mine." Mulder smiled sweetly at Marsha and she blushed even more deeply. Unlike Krycek, he was completely unaware of the effect of his smile on the lovely doctor. "Thank you for helping us out here, Marsha."

"Yes, thank you -- I promise not to do this to you too often." Scully's wry look sparked a chuckle from her friend.

"If you have any more patients who look like this one, feel free to call on me any time." Krycek winked at her, and the chuckle escaped again. Then she straightened her face and looked at him sternly. "Now follow Doctor Scully's orders, and take it easy."

"Yes, ma'am," he deadpanned back at her, and she shook her head. Gathering the xrays, she slid them into a folder and handed them to Scully.

"And I haven't seen any of you here tonight. Good luck," she added as she shut the door quietly behind her.

Mulder and Scully looked at Krycek with calm determination. He felt like a pinned bug under a microscope. "What?" he finally asked nervously.

"Might as well get this over with," Mulder sighed, and he moved forward to help Krycek slide from the table. Alex swayed unsteadily, a soft moan escaping from his lips as a wave of dizziness swept over him. Scully saw the color drain from his face again and hurried to stand at his other side.

"We'll take it slow. Hang on, Krycek, this is not going to be pleasant."

No shit, he thought, but clenched his teeth against the comment. He concentrated fiercely on putting one foot in front of the other, all the way out to the car, then repeated the process up to Mulder's apartment. Their luck held, and they made it back to the privacy of the dark rooms without seeing any of his neighbors.

They settled Krycek into Mulder's bed, after digging it out from the pile of folders, books, newspaper clippings and discarded clothing that had buried it. He tried to relax enough to drift off to sleep, but he was incredibly tense. He felt adrift, frightened more than he was willing to admit, and incredibly alone. Concentrating the best he could through the pain in his head, waiting for the medication to take effect and dull it at least a little, he could just make out snippets of the conversation from the front room.

"-should be finished about four ... want me to bring anything by ..."

"...call Dorothy in personnel ... no problem with Skinner ..."

"...should be able to do some of it on my laptop..."

" ... helluva way to spend vacation ..."

"...not that you'd do anything else ..."

" ... be careful..." Mulder to Scully. Had he somehow put them in danger by coming here?

" ... watch your back ..." Scully to Mulder. From whom? Him? It seemed right, yet somehow completely wrong.

He tried to empty his mind, the sound of the door closing registering but not interrupting his efforts. He imagined himself floating, trying to relax, trying to stop thinking, trying to get some rest. Eventually, some of the stiffness eased from his back and shoulders, and he was able to slip into sleep.

 

It had been an uneventful night, a rarity for Mulder and completely unexpected given his unusual houseguest. But it wasn't his own nightmares that awoke Mulder. It was Krycek's. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, pausing to squint at the illuminated dial of his watch and wincing when he saw that it was not quite four thirty in the morning, Mulder stumbled toward his bedroom and leaned against the doorjamb, studying Alex's twisting form. Whatever he was dreaming about, it was not pleasant.

He shuffled into the room and settled into the armchair, watching the muttering, sweating form on the bed and patiently waiting for anything useful that he might let slip in his sleep. His eyes were drawn along the solid lines of Krycek's body as he tried to outrun whatever it was that was chasing him through his dreams. But the slick skin, the bunching and relaxing muscles, and the half-opened mouth and flushed cheeks brought back too many memories he was trying to suppress, so he concentrated on listening, and forced himself to ignore the other signals his body was sending to him. With a concerted effort, he leaned forward, rested his forearms on his knees, and watched Krycek's face.

Deep behind a wall of pain, images were coming back. Unable to block them, not understanding them or the undercurrents of terror and anger that supported them, Krycek was tossed along the current of his memories. He watched image after image flash in front of his mind's eye, and feared he might drown.

A bathroom, cold, empty, a man's face in the mirror. Remnants of a smile etched on the man's face as he reached for the gun at Krycek's waist. No time to react, sound of a gunshot echoing through the house, grabbing his gun back from the old man's hand, hearing a voice, Mulder? Was that Mulder? He sounded wavery, uncertain. Not like his Mulder. Run. Run. Now. Get the hell out of here, gonna be blamed for this one, he didn't see, did he? No time. Run!

A small, barely furnished warehouse basement, just a chair, some wrought iron railings, a chain. A camera. A syringe. Blood, and he didn't want to hurt him. Just needed a breather, just needed them to stop chasing him, just long enough to escape the Menace. A quick flick of a chain, and a burning across his face, then anger, and sudden tenderness. Mulder's wrists under his hands, stopping the blood, warming the cold skin. Fingers slowing, breath quickening. A change from anger to a different kind of pain, and closeness he had never expected. But his eyes. His eyes hated him, ice in the hazel depths, yet another kind of pain to live through.

The top of a mountain. A small car, dangling from a cable. And a man, slumping over a control panel. Quick, squeezing the trigger, then squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden rush of nausea. Look out the window, over at the car, anywhere but at the bits of brain matter and bone scattered across the small working counter, oh god, Mulder again. Up on the car. Delay him. Gotta stop him, didn't know why, shit, no one ever tells him anything anyway. Gotta make sure he's too late. For something. Start the car, enough time already, gotta run. Time's up, Fox, time's up, Alex, run! Run!

The thrashing finally woke him from his wash of memories, jolting his head and wringing a cry of pain from his throat. He squinted into the darkness, seeing a shape in the corner and reacting instinctively. The sheets were thrown aside and he lunged at the shape, knocking it from the chair, turning to run again. The shape moved, faster than he expected, and caught him in the front room as he was heading for the door. In the shadowy light cast by the muted television the shape defined itself as Mulder, holding his arms as he swayed, glaring and smiling at him at the same time, an unusual expression.

"Don't you think you should put on some clothes before you leave, Krycek?"

Alex looked down at the loose sweatpants barely held at his waist with a drawstring, and remembered where he was. Safe. With Mulder. The adrenaline surge receded, leaving him shaking. Mulder caught him as his legs gave out.

"Whoa. Are you okay?" Without waiting for an answer, he half led, half carried him to the sofa and ungracefully dumped him in the corner. Settling himself into the opposite corner, Mulder stared hard at Krycek. "What is it? What did you remember?" Alex stared at him dumbly for a moment, and Mulder continued more gently. There was something about that deer-in-the-headlights look that made him want to be kind with the man, even though his mind wanted him to shoot him. "If you talk about what you saw, maybe you can make some sense of it, and remember a little more."

Krycek stared at him for a moment more, then hesitantly began to describe his dreams. "They were just bits and pieces. I don't know what they meant."

"What did you see?" Calm, undemanding. Psychologist coming to the fore, enemy retreating for the moment.

"A cabled car, leading up to a mountain. I think ... you were on top of it? But that doesn't make sense." Mulder grew still, but Krycek was wrapped in his memories, and didn't notice. "And there was something I had to do, but I didn't want to do it. I felt sick, sick to my stomach, and I had to run." He paused, took a deep breath, and skipped the second disturbing dream fragment, moving back to the first one, the one that he thought didn't directly involve Mulder.

"Then I was in a bathroom. Isn't that weird?" Mulder could have been carved from stone at this point, but Krycek still didn't notice.

"There was an old man there. He was really shaky, looked like he felt sick. I saw myself in the mirror when he opened the medicine cabinet. I looked surprised. He wasn't supposed to see me! I was listening. For something. I don't remember what. He saw me ... and he smiled at me. Why did he smile at me? I started to say something. He reached out, grabbed my gun."

Mulder jerked, and Krycek finally looked at him. The agent's eyes were wide, staring at him with an eerie blankness, and he took a quick gasping breath. "What? Mulder? You okay? What is it?"

Mulder shook his head, one sharp movement, and motioned for him to continue. Keeping a wary eye on the other man, Krycek tried to remember what had happened next. "Sounded really loud. I was panicking. That wasn't supposed to happen. I was gonna get caught, then they'd kill me."

"Who?" The preternaturally calm voice directed Krycek but didn't distract him from his thoughts.

"The Menace. I don't know. He frightens me." The fear in Krycek's voice was real enough, but there was an undercurrent of anger as well, possibly betrayal.

"What happened then, Alex?" the gentle, cool voice prodded.

"Grabbed my gun. I was going to be blamed, they were going to find me."

His voice had softened, the diction sharpening, every word clearly enunciated. Something had gone badly wrong, and he didn't know what, but he remembered the wrenching in his gut. "I heard a voice. It sounded like you, but not like you, younger, somehow. The old man, he ... he was smiling at me."

He shook himself slightly, the pain from his skull injury bringing him back to himself, and he forced out the last bit he could remember. "Then I shimmied through ... a window? God, it was small, I was in a hurry and it seemed so small."

He stopped abruptly, and narrowed his eyes at Mulder. "Does any of this make the slightest bit of sense to you?"

Mulder stared at him for a long, tense moment, then sighed. "Yeah," he finally admitted, "but if I find out you've been bullshitting me I'll shoot you myself, truce or no truce." He seemed more tired than angry to Alex, though, tired and somehow sad.

Alex bit his lip lightly. He wasn't sure he wanted to bring up the last memory he'd had, but he was afraid if he didn't it would drive him crazy. After all, if they had been intimate, why would Mulder hate him so much? "Uhm, Mulder?"

"What?" Not encouraging. He was distracted, by something. Alex took a deep breath and plunged in.

"I had another memory." Shadowed hazel eyes swung over to meet his, and he nearly lost his courage. But he had to know. "What are we? To each other, I mean?"

"Enemies." Mulder's voice was implacable, but his eyes were too carefully blank. He was hiding something, and Krycek knew it had to be about him.

"But were we ever anything else?"

"Partners, once, for a short period of time." Krycek perked up at this, but Mulder's next words caused his eyes to go wide and his breath to catch in his throat. "Until you betrayed me and nearly got Scully killed."

"How?" A strangled whisper.

Mulder paused and stared at him, then shook his head. "You have to remember on your own, Krycek. What else was it in your dream? What prompted all these questions?"

Alex didn't answer him in words. He reached over between them to where Mulder's hand rested on the cushions of the couch. Lifting it, he softly ran one fingertip across the thin white scars ringing Mulder's wrist. "This." Taking advantage of Mulder's apparent shock and frozen stance, he reached across with his free hand and ran the pad of his index finger along the curve of Mulder's cheek, following the angle of the bone to come to rest lightly on his full lower lip. "And this."

Mulder's hand clenched into a fist in his light grip, and he slowly, determinedly pulled his head back from Krycek's touch. "You had to have a truce, Krycek. You used me for bait. We made a deal. Anything else ... was a nightmare."

Alex knew that Mulder was lying, but there was enough truth in his words to make him wonder. Whatever their relationship was, it was too complex for him to understand without access to his own memories. Suddenly tired, he dropped Mulder's wrist and pushed himself shakily up from the couch.

"Whatever your reasons, Mulder, thank you for letting me stay here." His tone was completely sincere. Mulder pursed his lips and made a noncommittal sound. As Krycek wandered back to bed, he thought he heard Mulder mutter, "...sending a lamb to slaughter. A lamb with fangs." For some reason the imagery made him smile, and he slept until morning, undisturbed by further dreams.

 

Five days had passed, and the nightmares, or memories, or dreams, or whatever one wanted to call them, had continued. The dizziness was almost gone, popping up at odd moments when he least expected it. The headache had dulled to a background roar, unless he got tired or stressed. He was surprised that he hadn't gotten stir crazy yet, since he was forced to stay inside all day, for fear the Menace would find out where he was hiding. But Mulder was there, too, and he was fascinated by Mulder. And for once, the other man seemed to actually be relaxing around him. Of course, the fact that he was following Mulder around like a lost puppy probably had something to do with it. He was surprised *Mulder* hadn't gone crazy from putting up with *him*.

Then the memories started to hit him during the day.

He was sitting at the cluttered coffeetable, reading the sports page and trying to remember if he liked any of the teams, and if it was normal to remember the names of the positions on a football team but not know if he even liked football.

He looked up to ask Mulder a question, when the quiet picture of Mulder, sitting with his feet propped on the end of the table and his wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, was replaced with a desperate, red-eyed, stubble-faced Mulder with a gun in his shaking hand, blood running from split knuckles where he had just beaten the crap out of Krycek, and his whole world contracted to a pinpoint of darkness. The barrel of Mulder's gun. 'Did you kill my father? Did you? Did you kill my father?' The anguished words screamed through his head, and he dropped the paper, gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white from the strain. 'He killed my father, Scully!' 'Drop the weapon, Mulder! I have him!' and the sound of a gunshot, pure terror, followed by sheer relief and astonishment when he realized that he had not been shot, that she had shot Mulder. She shot her own partner.

He was completely unaware of the whimper that escaped his lips, but it brought Mulder's head up. Mulder focused his attention on the shocked white face and dark green eyes, wild with some remembered mix of fright and adrenaline and sheer terror and the urge to run, the need to hide. Krycek looked like a cornered animal.

Without thought, Mulder laid aside his paperwork and crossed the room to drop to his knees beside Krycek. "Hey, what is it?" he asked softly, careful not to touch or startle the other man. Krycek gasped sharply at the words, coming back from the nightmare vision to stare wide-eyed at Mulder.

"Why'd she shoot you? I didn't shoot your father!" He sounded completely confused.

Mulder swallowed heavily, and closed his eyes for a heartbeat before trying to answer. "Maybe not, but somebody was lacing my drinking water with LSD, somebody, I think--thought it was you, had shot my father, Scully didn't want me to take on a murder rap for shooting you, and you were sneaking around my apartment. I wasn't in the clearest frame of mind, and I didn't -- don't trust you."

It sounded completely believable, if he could just ignore the content of the statement and listen to the tone of Mulder's voice. LSD? Murder? Was the old man ... suddenly, he felt his stomach roll. He clenched his jaw against the sick feeling and took a deep breath through his nose.

"That old man. He was your father." A statement, not a question this time.

"Yes," Mulder readily agreed. Krycek stared at the newspapers scattered in front of him for a long moment, then forced himself to meet Mulder's intense eyes.

"I didn't kill him." Complete conviction underlay his words. He remembered that much. He'd killed the cable operator, there on that mountain. He remembered giving a pill to a wild eyed man in an isolated room, then watching him choke to death. He remembered punching a balding man viciously while two others held him still. He knew he was some sort of hired thug, that he was capable of killing. But he hadn't killed the old man. He couldn't hurt Mulder. He didn't know why, he just knew he couldn't.

Mulder held the clear gaze as long as he could, then sighed and settled his back into the front of the couch, stretching his long legs along the side of the table. "I don't know what to believe anymore, Krycek. I just hope you get your memory back pretty soon. The longer you're here, the more danger you put us all in."

Krycek didn't have an answer to that, so he settled down beside Mulder and pulled the paper over to him. Handing the politics section to Mulder, he buried his head back in the sports page. Mulder looked at the newspaper, looked at the man beside him, looked at the paperwork lying abandoned next to his chair, and started to scan the headlines.

 

It had been quite a week. Mulder was glad for once that he was a paranoiac, because it was good practice for the amount of looking over his shoulder that he was doing since Krycek came to hide out with him. Scully came over every night until she cleared up the last details at the lab, then she took some long overdue vacation herself. Between the two of them, they gently grilled Krycek on every aspect of his life. Bits and pieces began to emerge. His father was dead, his mother estranged from him. He had an older brother, but they didn't have any contact, either. He liked Scully, and she seemed to be softening, when she would get a haunted look in her eyes and freeze up on him again. Mulder was alternately exasperated and patient, the man warring with the psychologist, and he continued to be fascinated by him.

The dizziness gradually abated, and he found himself getting restless for some physical action. He stretched, and without conscious thought went through a Tai Chi workout, a soft one to work himself gradually up to speed. He only realized what had happened when he came out of the last position to see Scully staring at him from one side of the living room and turned to see Mulder staring at him from the other. The quality of the stares was completely different. Scully seemed to be measuring him, her "doctor" look coupled with a need to figure him out. Mulder, on the other hand, was staring at him with the same kind of fascination he had been feeling toward Mulder all week. In a sudden remembrance that brought a gasp to his lips, he remembered that long, lean body writhing under his hands, sweat making his skin glow, a strangely unfocussed glaze to those deep hazel eyes. His hands dropped, and he took a step toward Mulder. The other man jolted from his thoughts and leaned back in his chair.

"Krycek?" Scully's sharp voice spun him around, and the world shifted again.

Dark room. Light furniture, comfortable, but not tonight. Tonight it was deadly. A trap. Two guns, two men, one unsuspecting victim. His heartrate speeding up, he hated the waiting, hated this part of the job. Didn't want to think about what this would do to Mulder. Heard the key in the lock, red hair tumbling around her face as she came through the door. Started to squeeze the trigger, but something held him back. Noise ripped from the other corner, and her body slammed back with the impact, then fell forward in a crumpled heap. No sound, other than the silencer coughing in the dark. He came forward, gun at the ready, finger off the trigger. Felt her shoulder with his toe, rolled her limp body toward the light, watched the curls fall back from a pretty face, a sweet face, the wrong face. His stomach clenched, and he bit back the curses with difficulty. 'Not her.' Oh shit. She was dead. So was he. They didn't know, the Menace hadn't found that little secret. Or had he? Was this his punishment for getting too close?

Dana's face, yet not Dana's face. He gasped for breath, his hand going to his head, the dizziness back with a vengeance. Why the hell had she been there?

"Steady, Krycek. I think you're trying to do too much too fast." Mulder's strong arm behind him, bringing him to her. Oh, god, no wonder she hated him.

Scully leaned over him to look into his eyes, feeling his skin, checking his pulse. He stared at her with something like horror.

"Lissa." The word was more of a croak than a whisper, but the effect was immediate. Scully dropped his wrist as if he had burnt her.

Mulder was instantly at her side. "Scully? You okay? What's wrong?"

Scully was staring at Krycek as if he was a particularly poisonous snake. Without looking at her partner, she forced out, "Missy." A shudder ran through her body, then she took Krycek's face in her hands, making him keep his eyes locked to hers. "What happened, Krycek?" Her voice was cold, and hard, and shaking just the slightest bit.

"We were at your apartment. An ambush." Mulder stiffened and moved closer, but neither of the others noticed, too caught up in the tension between them. "Weasel was in the far corner. I was in the kitchen. She came in and he fired." He stopped, his throat constricting, and she prompted him by the simple expedient of clenching her fist in his hair and shaking him. Tears came to his eyes, but he swallowed and started talking. "I didn't. Wrong target. I didn't realize who she was until ... it was over. I ... turned her over to see her face and it was ... Lissa."

"You knew her?" Mulder's voice was incredulous.

"Yeah." Pain, and regret, and something indefinable in his answer.

Scully unwound her fingers from his hair and sank into the cushions beside Alex. Taking a deep, calming breath, she stared up at Mulder. "Missy had been seeing someone. No one in the family had met him, but that was Missy. Her own business. She called him Michael." She paused and looked at Krycek.

"My middle name," he responded dully.

Mulder crouched down in front of his dazed friend and equally dazed enemy. "Did you know it was her?" This to Krycek, wondering at his willingness to admit his attempt to murder Scully.

"God, no," Krycek growled, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "But, I don't know. Maybe he did. Maybe this was my punishment for fucking up with your father."

"No," Scully managed to whisper. Both men looked at her. "He'd have no way of knowing. She was on her way to my house, but he wouldn't have known that."

"Maybe he tapped your phone." Krycek sounded calm, but his eyes were tormented.

"So you think it was you he was setting up? Not Scully?"

"You're trying to tell me that my sister was the target?" Scully shook her head. "I don't believe it."

"No, you were the target. But he wasn't disappointed that it was Lissa who got ... killed. One more weapon to use against me, against you."

"Let me get this straight," Mulder interjected. "You were somehow involved with Scully's sister?" He seemed to be having a hard time with that idea.

"Uh-huh. It was not the swiftest thing I've ever done, considering all the back history and my relationship with you two-"

"And the fact that you were sent to kill her sister-"

"-but she was, I don't know. She was special."

"Yes. She was." Scully stared off into the distance, far removed from the others.

"She caught me, one day, I was tailing Scully for some reason, I don't remember what it was. They went to a crystal shop-"

"I bought dreamcatcher earrings for her."

"-and Mulder picked you up. Lissa saw me and came right up to me. It was the weirdest thing. She just looked at me, and seemed to look right through me."

"Yeah, she did things like that," Mulder smiled in spite of himself.

"She gave me this little piece of onyx, told me I needed protection. I found myself talking to her, she was ... interesting, and bright. And pretty. And we started seeing each other, not much, just every once in awhile." His eyes focused on the bright red hair of the woman beside him. "Playing with fire."

"Only you weren't the one who got burned, Krycek, she was." Scully turned to face him, and stopped, recognizing the pain in his leaf green eyes.

"Yeah. I was. She ... I'm sorry, Scully."

The room fell silent, each wrapped in their own thoughts, the bubbling of the fish tank the only sound they heard. Finally, Mulder leaned back into the chair and sighed.

"I'm sorry, too, Krycek, but not sorry that you didn't hit your original target."

Scully seemed to realize that she was sitting thigh to thigh with the man her sister had been sleeping with and who had just admitted to setting her up to be killed. For some reason, she didn't feel much of an urge to run. Perhaps it was the undoubted pain he was in, or perhaps it was the odd fact that, whatever the past might have held, they were on the same side now. He hadn't killed Mulder's father, if he was to be believed, and not only had he not killed Missy, he'd apparently been her lover. Her head hurt from trying to sort it all out. But one fact was glaringly obvious. To get to the man who was truly responsible for her sister's death and her abduction, she would use anyone and anything she could. She glanced measuringly at the man sitting beside her, head bowed slightly in pain.

"Then what happened, Krycek?" Softly spoken, the question slipped past his built-in defenses, and he found himself answering Mulder, the memories flowing back more surely this time.

"Got the tape from Skinner. It was in my pocket, the next day, I'd slipped in to see Lissa, made sure no one saw me. She looked so peaceful. Like she was sleeping." He didn't seem to hear the slight choking sound from Scully, and continued his story. "A couple hours after I saw her, the team hit Skinner in the stairwell, got the tape from him. We were in the car the next morning, and they both went over to get something to drink from the 7-11. But I noticed that the clock was blinking, and they looked really nervous. I saw them, in the rear view mirror, looked like they were watching the car, waiting for something. And the clock was blinking at me. And I knew. Took off running as soon as it hit me, and the car blew up behind me." Both agents sucked in their breath, but he continued, oblivious, caught up in his remembered fear and anger. "I ran, and ran, and stopped just long enough to call the double crossing son of a bitch and tell him to back off or he'd be famous. But I knew he couldn't back off. He had to kill me." He stopped abruptly and looked first at Scully, then at Mulder, letting his eyes linger on the angular face for a long moment. "I've been running ever since."

"Do you still have the tape?" Scully sounded remarkably composed, considering everything she'd learned that night. But he saw the tangle of emotions in her eyes, and knew she would have a lot to think about. Right now, though, she was willing to work with him. He would take it while he could.

"Yeah. It's my insurance."

"Ours, too," Mulder mused. "Only we're using codetalkers and storytellers to keep the information." Krycek nodded approval. "So, you remember now?"

"Most of it, I think. There are still ... holes." He looked at Mulder a bit uncertainly. There had been a man, holding a pipe over Mulder's face, about to strike. He'd been torn in two -- save Mulder? Go after the other man, the one he could use against the Menace? The pipe began to descend and his body made the decision for his mind, stepping forward, shooting the man, protecting Mulder. He didn't know exactly why it had been so important, was still so important to him to keep Mulder safe. But it was. Even now. "Enough to know that I shouldn't be here. You were right. The longer I stay the more risk I am to you, to both of you."

Scully stared calmly at him. "Where will you go?"

"And what can you tell us that we can use? And believe?" Mulder sounded equally calm, but his narrowed eyes gave him away. He still didn't trust Krycek, but part of him wanted to. Badly.

"Not as much as you'd like, or me either, for that matter." He rolled his shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension.

"I think it's time we extended the definition of this truce, Alex."

"What are you asking?" It was Krycek's turn to sound suspicious, eyes roving from one agent to the other, and Scully followed up on Mulder's comment.

"You don't trust us. We don't trust you. We have a common enemy." She took a deep breath and flashed back on the tense meeting in the warehouse almost eight months before. "I think it's time we worked together."

Krycek studied her determined face for a long time, finally satisfied that the hatred and anger had dissipated enough that he would be able to trust her ... at least far enough not to kill him when his guard was down. He turned to Mulder, eyes drinking in the pale, set face, wanting with a ferocity that startled him to know the secrets somehow held between them. He knew, in time, he would, but he wanted them now. He took a ragged breath and forced a smile, shaky, but more sincere than any he'd been able to offer them before.

"Works for me."

Mulder reached for his small recorder, but Krycek shook his head.

"No. Too dangerous, to both of us." He turned to Scully. "Can I borrow your laptop?" Scully exchanged glances with Mulder, then nodded. She went into the kitchen to retrieve her briefcase and Mulder leaned back in his chair, regarding Krycek unblinkingly.

"What will you give us?" His voice was soft, creating a pool of intimacy between the two of them. Krycek swallowed, his throat tight. Whatever it was, it was strong, and heavy, and very complex. He half smiled. And it had been good.

Shaking himself back to the present, he answered simply, "Everything I remember."

Mulder's eyes widened. "Everything?"

"You don't have to trust me. This is partial payback for you taking me in ... and partly to cement my side of the partnership. I need your help, Mulder. Yours and Scully's. And I can help you." His eyes pled with Mulder to accept him on this one, to give a little, and something in the agent responded. Against his better judgment, he nodded.

"You're on." Scully entered the room and set the small laptop computer up on the coffeetable. "So, type."

Mulder's small grin surprised an answering smile from Krycek, and he slid off the couch to settle comfortably on the floor in front of the table. As he stared at the glowing screen and organized his thoughts, Scully curled into the corner of the couch to watch him. He glanced up at her, and she offered him a serious, but not hostile, glance.

"This won't be easy."

"No," he agreed, "it won't."

"But it just might be worth it."

"Especially if we can finally get rid of that black lunged son of a bitch," Mulder growled.

"My hope exactly," Krycek chimed in, then bent to the keyboard.

Over the soft clatter of keys, Scully reiterated, "Where will you go?"

"A hiding place I know. I don't think they know about it yet." He didn't seem worried about it, concentrating on his typing. She nodded slowly. He thought he would be safe. It would have to do. And the sooner the better.

Mulder brooded in his chair, watching the bright head of his partner, the darker silk of Alex at her knee. He had deep misgivings about this odd partnership they were entering, but on another level it seemed almost fated. He just couldn't seem to get rid of Alex Krycek, no matter how hard he tried. Krycek seemed to feel the weight of Mulder's stare on his face, and glanced up. Whatever he saw there made him catch his breath in a tiny gasp, unheard, but felt by the man across the room. Mulder dropped his eyes to the papers he shuffled from the file beside him, and steadfastly tried to ignore him.

Alex riveted his eyes back to the screen, his fingers flying over the keys. As the incriminating sentences took shape, he analyzed his actions, and came up with a fact he hadn't wanted to face. The underlying need he had to form this partnership was only secondarily due to self protection, a first for him, since that had been his primary concern for as far back as his admittedly damaged memory stretched. But it wasn't now. His true reason for starting this insane course was because he had to discover the reasons he felt compelled to protect Mulder. And along the way, he might just be able to answer his own question.

What was Fox Mulder to him?

 

_Recognition_

It was an anniversary of sorts, he mused to himself as he gathered up the sheets of statistical data and fed them into the scanner, one at a time. One year to the day since he had first approached them about a truce, one year since he had kidnapped Fox Mulder and used him as a hostage of fortune to force Dana Scully and Director Skinner to stop hunting him long enough for him to kill the black lunged bastard who used to be his boss and was now trying to kill him.

The soft whir of the machinery clicked to a stop, and he quickly gathered up the sheets and set about wiping the hard drive. Hard luck on the office worker whose computer he was using at four in the morning, but Mulder needed these sheets and it was too dangerous to meet in person at the moment. Cancerman's thugs were closing in, had nearly gotten him two nights ago. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite regained all the memories he had lost a few months earlier when he'd had a close encounter with a wooden plank, but he was remembering more each day. And every new memory only scared him further into hiding.

If Mulder and Scully knew everything he had done, they never would have entered this partnership. And there was still more to uncover, he knew that. Part of him was so anxious to find out the truth he could taste it. The rest of him wanted to run away and not ever come back.

The only problem was when you ran away from yourself, you could never escape.

 

Byers looked at the figures scrolling across the screen and his normally calm expression gave way to wide eyes and gaped mouth. Running his hand nervously over his neatly trimmed beard he called, "Frohicke! Langley! Come here!" He ignored the fact that his voice squeaked. This was worth it. His cohorts gathered behind him to peer over his shoulder, then shared glances. Langley nodded solemnly and Frohicke reached for the telephone. The lanky blond went through the standard ritual of flipping switches and punching buttons to defeat possible traces as the little man dialed a number from memory. Moments later, the signal connected.

"Mulder."

"We got it."

A click, a satisfied smile, and three indrawn breaths. Frohicke gently cradled the receiver and turned once more to study the screen. "It worked for Al Capone. No reason why it can't work for these creeps."

 

Scully looked up from the report she was typing as Mulder reached over her shoulder and hit the save button.

"What the-" A long forefinger touched her lips softly, then withdrew quickly. She narrowed her eyes at him and he straightened to reach for her coat.

"Let's go get some lunch, Scully."

She looked pointedly at her watch, then stared at him, hard. There was no trace of levity in his closed expression, but searching his darkened eyes she knew. No matter if it was only 10:28. It was lunch time. Without another word she powered down her computer and slipped her arms into the jacket. He flipped the light switch off behind them and without another word they headed for the elevator.

It was a brisk morning, unusually so for September, with a watery sun peeking through the dismal grey clouds. Scully squinted into the breeze and stuffed her hands deeply into her pockets, giving him the time he needed to formulate his thoughts. Mulder, for his part, shortened his stride to match his much shorter partner's, and sighed quietly.

"I think this time we got him."

She glanced sharply at him. "You've heard from Krycek?"

"Yeah." He swallowed and continued, not looking at her. It was still difficult to deal with what his former partner had done to him a year ago, and he'd not been able to bring himself to tell Scully. And once in awhile, when he was least expecting it, his eidetic memory would kick in and he would find himself in that bare room, awash with drugs, and overcome with sensations that still had the power to arouse him, and disgust him, and scare him half to death. Wrenching his thoughts back to the current situation, he clenched his fists in his coat pockets until the nails bit into his palms, and forced his voice to stay steady.

"He somehow managed to upload financial statements from a network of legitimate and dummy companies that have been funding the Consortium for the last four decades. I don't know how the hell he managed it, but he hacked the internal files for several of the shadow corporations and created a series of links that go right back to the source. Pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, medical supply companies, research labs, the whole thing. Sent them through to the Lone Gunmen, along with some of the pointers to the systems he hacked, and the guys took it from there. There is evidence of any number of kinds of financial crimes ranging from racketeering to tax evasion. And the links go even further, Scully. The evidence is there, the programs funded for human experimentation, the assassinations that were carried out ... they had a hell of a bookkeeping system, and Krycek hacked the whole damned thing. We have them. Cold."

She stopped and turned to look up at him, forcing him to stop as well. "So with this we can prove, what, Mulder? Are you saying that we can bring down the Cancerman for not paying his taxes?"

He grimaced in response, and shrugged ruefully. "It's a foot in the door, Scully. And by following the trail of money, we can gather all the loose ends together. It may be the best shot we get."

Scully took a deep breath and quirked a brow at him. "Then let's take it while we've got it." He grinned back down at her and turned on his heel, heading for the parking garage.

"Just call me Elliot Ness."

 

Three blocks from Lone Gunmen headquarters Mulder knew that something was radically wrong. The jolt and near sonic boom that shook the car was the first indication. The fire engines and paramedics units screaming past them to block their way were his second. The heavy black smoke drifting into the sky behind the wall of emergency vehicles was the next.

"Shit!!" He swerved the car toward the curb, parking it haphazardly as he reached into his inner coat pocket for his cell phone. Punching the third memory button, he cursed again as he got the recording informing him that they were unable to connect his call, please try again. As he thrust the phone back into his pocket and slammed from the car, Scully was already there, flashing her badge at the harried policeman guarding the line, pushing her way through to survey the damage. What she saw made her throat dry up.

Mulder struggled to her side and swept the scene with his eyes. It was chaos. Ash and crumbled pieces of wood and brick were scattered through the street, glass glittered over everything, and the survivors were huddled in small clumps, attended by hovering Emergency Medical Service personnel, wrapped in blankets, blood and tears and shock evident wherever they looked. The force of the bomb blast had been incredible. Coroners' wagons were also on scene, and Scully heard what sounded like a faint moan from her partner at the sight of so many body bags. Then he brushed past her and headed toward the fire chief directing his men. As soon as the man had finished barking orders into his walkie talkie, Mulder stepped forward.

"Sir, Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI." He held out his badge, and the chief nodded wearily. "How ... what ..." He swallowed, and licked his lips. "What happened here?"

"It was a bomb, agent, what was your name, Mulder?" The chief was abrupt, his tone making it evident that any idiot could see what had happened. "Look, I have a hell of a job on my hands here. If you want to talk to me you'll have to wait until this calms down. Harrison! Get the fourth unit over to the west wall!" Shouting orders as he went, he turned his back on Mulder and hurried to direct the fire fighting efforts. As Mulder stood, staring with horror at the building that used to house the Lone Gunmen, a strong hand gripped his forearm.

"It wasn't your fault, Mulder."

He gritted his teeth and stared at the flames. "The hell it wasn't, Scully." They stood together, a dark spot of calm in the midst of a maelstrom of barely controlled activity, and watched the building burn. Neither was aware of how long they stood there before they became aware of a short, smoky-smelling figure at Mulder's right elbow.

"I knew they'd come after us one day but I didn't know they'd kill so many people to do it."

Mulder and Scully both whirled on the blanket draped man. "Frohicke!" yelled Mulder, and reached down to hug his friend exuberantly. A muffled whimper of pain caused him to loosen his hold immediately.

"Damn. I'm sorry. Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?" Mulder held the little man at arm's length, scanning him thoroughly and at the same time trying to look around for the others. "Byers? Langley? Did they make it out okay?"

Scully was quicker to react to the loss in the red-rimmed eyes. She placed a supporting hand on his back, patting gently, as he dropped his head. "I'm okay. Just caught my arm and cut it up a little. Got hit by some flying glass in the explosion. Byers, he's going to be all right I think. They took him off to the hospital. Took a beam across the ribs and broke his collarbone, I think, maybe his leg too, hard to tell."

His voice was dropping with each word, and Mulder leaned close to hear him, clasping his shoulders strongly. "Langley ... he was in the front room by the hallway ... took the brunt of the blast ... he ... it ... destroyed ... he's dead, Mulder." The last words were just a whisper into Mulder's chest, as the agent wrapped his arms around the smaller man and held him up. Mulder looked over the balding head at his partner, her eyes reflecting his sorrow.

"I'm so sorry, Frohicke." He gently released his friend and stepped back slightly, keeping an eye out in case he needed to support him again. Taking in the generally haggard face and the slumping figure, he patted his shoulder and steered him toward the car. "C'mon, man, I'm taking you to the hospital."

Scully took one side, putting a strong arm around Frohicke's waist, and Mulder took the other. Supporting the wounded man to their car, they made the trip to the emergency room in silence.

 

It had been a hard month. He'd spent most of his free time, what little there was left over after dealing with two cases that he could have sworn Skinner gave them just to get him out of DC. Byers was mending, slowly, and Frohicke was better, although still much more quiet than usual. Neither blamed Mulder for the bombing, or for Langley's death.

Confirmed paranoiacs that they were, and as involved as they were with uncovering governmental conspiracies, they admitted that Krycek's information might have been the motivating factor in the attack, but were adamant that it was by no means the only reason why they would be, and had been, targeted. Mulder tried to get assigned to the case and was forcefully informed that he was too personally involved. When nothing conclusive turned up at the crime scene, he wasn't the least surprised. And to make his frustration complete, every avenue he tried to use to contact Krycek was a complete washout. He was beginning to suspect that his reluctant ally had finally been stopped by their common enemy.

He was staring balefully at a slide from a twenty year old murder scene, wondering if it would be worth bringing up the possibility of malevolent spirits in the case, when his computer beeped. Email. Priority email, at that. He tossed the slide into the jumbled, open file on his desk and tapped the mouse, bringing up his new message. The from: field made him sit forward abruptly.

It was from SkippyRat. Routed through a bulletin board in Arizona, sent from a public library terminal somewhere in Wheaton.

"Scully, come look at this." She lifted her head at the urgency in his voice and saw him peering intently at his computer screen.

"What is it, Mulder?" She came around the side of the desk and scanned the screen. Chewing thoughtfully on her lip, she looked over at him. "Is this legitimate, do you think?"

"Yeah," he replied, distractedly. "Yeah, I recognize his writing style. And I've got to make this meeting. Do you know the layout at the campus?" Krycek had finally contacted him, and set up a meeting at a parking garage on the campus at George Mason University.

"Well enough. I'll stay back and watch your backs." He flashed her a gratified smile, and settled back into his paperwork. There was nothing to do now but wait. And make sure he had both his waist holster and his ankle holster ready to go.

There was no one around at eleven thirty on a Thursday night in the lowest level of the parking garage, and the silence and the shadows gave the place an unworldly appearance.

"Spooky," Mulder muttered to himself, and for once, didn't grin at his own joke. He was on edge, jumpier than he expected. Something was nibbling at the corners of his mind, telling him to be extra careful, extra alert. He respected his sixth sense. It had saved his life more than once.

A soft footfall in the darkness brought him around, and he watched silently as Alex Krycek stepped forward hesitantly. He stopped a few feet from Mulder and studied him as intently as he himself was being studied.

"Hi." He shifted from one foot to the other, clutching a thick manila envelope in one fist and shifting his eyes constantly around the perimeter. "I'm, uhm, I'm sorry about your friend, Mulder."

"Thanks." Krycek looked like hell, Mulder thought grimly. His eyes were shadowed and sunken, he hadn't shaved in days, and from the looks of it hadn't had a bath in nearly as long. "What's going on here, Krycek?" He kept his voice low, uncomfortable in the echoing emptiness of the garage.

The other man gestured jerkily with the hand holding the envelope. "Made a hard copy of the information I sent to your buddies. It hasn't been safe for me to try to get it to you until now."

"They getting close?" Mulder stepped next to Krycek, holding out a hand for the envelope.

"Too fucking close, man." He looked nervously over his shoulder. "Nearly caught me a couple days before I sent this out, then again two weeks ago. But I managed to lose them then, and haven't seen them since, so I wanted to get this to you while the heat was off."

Mulder placed the envelope securely inside his jacket. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, Mulder," Krycek snapped softly. "Just *get* the sonuvabitch. Soon as you can. I can't keep this up for much longer."

Mulder raised one hand in an abortive movement to touch Krycek's shoulder, but dropped it before contact could be made. "You look like it's getting to you." The younger man gave him a disbelieving look, then a rueful half smile.

"You could say tha-" Before he could finish the sentence, they heard the muffled crack of a silenced gun. Krycek instinctively threw himself forward, knocking Mulder off his feet, and they went down in a heap. Scully's sharp "Freeze! FBI!!" was followed almost immediately by an exchange of gunfire, the spitting thwacks of the silenced gun overpowered by the loud cracks of Scully's return fire.

Mulder scrambled for his gun, then gasped as the first wave of pain swept through his side. Krycek groaned, and shifted slightly, but remained sprawled protectively over the top of him. Scuffling sounds of running feet signaled the end of the battle, and Mulder was relieved to hear the soft slap of his partner's shoes as she ran to kneel beside them.

"Scully, you okay?" His voice was strained from the combination of Krycek's dead weight atop him and the fire spreading through his ribcage.

"I'm fine, Mulder. But I'm not so sure about Krycek." She carefully lifted the solid body away from him and rolled the limp form gently to his side, supporting his head. "Looks like he took another crack to the skull when he did his bodyguard dive onto you."

She examined the bleeding gash on Krycek's forehead critically. "How about you?" She looked over at her partner, his lack of movement registering with her. "Damn!" She laid Krycek's head down gently on the cold concrete and moved closer to Mulder, hands roving competently over his torso, looking for the source of the blood staining his shirt. "You were hit."

He tried not to take a deep breath, knowing by the grating in his side that at least one rib was broken. "Good thing he took me down," he gasped. "Otherwise it wouldn't be my ribcage feeling like this."

"No," she agreed, bunching the material of his shirt into her fist and laying it firmly against the shallow crease in his side. "It'd be ..." she paused and took a deep breath. "It would have taken you in the heart, Mulder." As she felt in her jacket for her cell phone to call an ambulance, a shaking hand closed over her fingers. She looked down at her partner.

"No hospital, Scully." She glared at him with exasperation. "For either of us." He gestured with his head at Krycek, just beginning to stir. "I might get lucky, although from the looks of it tonight, they're not as interested as they used to be in keeping me alive. But Alex would be dead before morning."

She stared from one to the other, tightening her lips as the truth of his words sunk in. "Okay. Looks like it's back to my place again." She sighed, and reached to help him shakily to his feet. "It's a good thing I keep up to date on medical techniques, Mulder. For a forensics specialist I spend a lot of time patching up live people." He snorted slightly with laughter and ducked his head to slide into the car seat.

"Hey, what about Krycek?" He couldn't believe he'd almost forgotten him. She pointed back over her shoulder with her chin at the dark clad figure pulling himself unsteadily to a seated position.

"He's relatively mobile. We'll manage." He settled into the cushions and watched her walk back over to the other man.

Alex was barely aware of the warm figure crouching down beside him. His head felt as though it was exploding, flashes of yellow and red and pure white going off behind his eyes. He raised his hands to cradle his skull, completely certain that at any moment it was going to fall off his shoulders.

"Krycek?" A firm voice, feminine, strong, familiar. Scully? He wasn't aware he'd spoken aloud until she replied. "Right here. Can you move? We need to get out of here."

It came back in a rush -- the exchange, the shots, the fall. "Mulder?" An edge of panic to his voice.

"He's in the car already. Come on, now."

A strong arm curved around his back, a shoulder edging into his side, and he concentrated as well as possible through the fierce pain in his head on lifting himself upright. As they shuffled to the car, his vision cleared and the pain began to subside. Leaning against the side of the car as she opened the rear door for him, he lifted a hand to the source of the pain, and stared at the bright blood dripping down his face and into his right eye.

"Head wounds always bleed a lot, Krycek," she reassured him with brisk sympathy as he crawled into the car. "It's a good spot to hit if you have to," she continued after seating herself at the steering wheel. "The front of the skull is relatively strong, much better than the temple or base of the skull. You'll end up with a dent in your head and a mild concussion, but at least it's probably not a fracture like last time."

"Thank god for small favors," he muttered to himself, trying to stem the blood flow. A sudden thought caused him to lift his head and peer sharply at Scully. "We're not going to a hospital, are we?"

She grinned slightly and looked calmly at him in the rearview mirror. "You sound just like Mulder. No, Krycek, we're not going to the hospital."

He released a relieved sigh and sank back into the cushion. It had been one hell of a night, and from the looks of it the party was just getting started.

 

Four stitches and several quarts of salt water later, Krycek finally felt relatively human again. Scully had propped him up on the couch with a towel and an ice bag, instructed him to stay still and apply pressure, and set about caring for her partner. Krycek had followed almost all of her orders, but he'd not been able to stay in the living room and miss all the action in the bedroom. Wandering unsteadily in after her, he made himself as inconspicuous as possible in the corner armchair and watched Doctor Scully work her magic on Mulder.

The pain was dulled to a background roar as he leaned his head back against the cushion and kept one eye on the proceedings. Scully worked quickly, carefully, but with an underlying tenderness that caused as little pain as possible to her wounded friend. Stripping Mulder efficiently, she washed away the dried blood and bandaged the shallow furrow the bullet had created, then bound his ribs tightly and covered him to the waist with the sheet, pausing only long enough to slip off his shoes and belt. Turning to see Krycek curled up in her armchair, she shrugged and pulled him firmly to his feet, leading him into the bathroom and settling him on the floor. Cushioning his neck with a rolled up towel, she pulled a plastic basin from under the sink, added salt, filled it with warm water and began to wash the gravel and dirt from the abrasion on his forehead. As the warm water flowed through his hair he felt himself begin to relax. She maintained her silence, concentrating on the task at hand, and he let his mind wander.

Something about the blood. The blood and Mulder with his shirt off. Creamy skin and blood. What the *hell* was the connection? There was something teasing at the back of his memory, something only glimpsed in dreams since he had fractured his skull and lost his memory. Something very, very important, that would go a long way toward explaining why he kept trying to protect Mulder, why he threw himself over him like a sheet of mortal armor instead of hiding as soon as he heard the gunshot. What the hell was he forgetting--

"This is going to sting, Krycek." He glanced up at determined blue eyes, then focused on the threaded needle she held. Great. Just what he needed. He closed his eyes and tried not to wince.

She was not surprised by his stoicism, but still a little impressed. Trying to distract him from the lack of anesthesia, she asked quietly, "Why did you do that? Why did you knock him out of the way? You saved his life, you know. And not for the first time."

"I don't know," he answered quickly, without thinking. "I just ... I had to."

She tied off the last knot and patted away the few drops of blood. Examining them critically, she nodded once. "That should heal well." Refocusing on his eyes, she started to reiterate her question. The genuine confusion she saw there stopped her words before they formed.

"If I ever figure it out you'll be the first to know," he joked weakly. She cocked her head to one side.

"No. I think he will." Putting an end to the conversation by the simple expedient of pulling him to his feet, she guided him back to the couch and settled him in the corner. He watched her walk back into the bedroom and closed his eyes. He was more tired than he could remember being in a long time, and that was really tired, since he'd been running for so damned long he felt like his whole life was spent looking over his shoulder.

Scully wandered out from the bedroom, having changed into sweats and slippers, and made her way to the couch to see if Krycek wanted anything to eat. Hearing a soft snore issuing from the still figure, she stopped at the corner of the room and studied him. Asleep, he lost the dangerous edge he held when alert. Long lashes shadowed pale cheeks, and his relaxed features gave him the deceptive innocence of a child. She could almost forget what this man was responsible for. Almost, but not quite. Settling into the wingchair she propped her feet on the ottoman and let her tiredness overtake her. It had been a hell of a night.

 

Assistant Director Skinner looked at the vacation slip in his hands and glanced up at the determinedly blank face of his Agent. "This is rather sudden, wouldn't you say, Scully?"

"It seems like a good time, Sir. Agent Mulder is still recovering from the loss of his friend in the bombing, we've solved two cases in three weeks, nothing pressing is on the calendar, and quite frankly, Sir, we could both use a little time off."

He looked intently at her face, noting the lines of stress around her eyes and the marks of fatigue around her mouth. She did look like she needed a vacation. Mulder hadn't even made it in to work. He made a snap decision. "Enjoy your vacation, Agent Scully. Tell Mulder the same." She rose to leave, and his voice halted her at the door. "And, Scully ..."

She looked over questioningly at his pause. "Sir?"

"Call me if you need anything."

She stared at him for a heartbeat, then smiled slightly. "I'll do that, Sir."

He watched the door close silently behind her and stared at the wood for a very long time.

 

The apartment was unusually silent. Mulder rested fitfully on the couch, Scully was off stocking up the larder for a combination recuperation period and planning/brainstorming session. And Krycek was thinking. Remembering.

He sprawled in the wingchair, relaxed for the first time in months. He had slept for nearly sixteen hours, taken a hot bath, eaten a huge lunch. For once, he was able to concentrate on something besides survival. And what he was thinking was freaking him out completely.

Snatches of conversations from meetings long buried. Instructions, following the line of his own desires a little too closely. Knowledge in the hands and the arsenals of the wrong people. Doing the worst possible things for the best possible reasons.

Other sensations under his fingertips, against his skin. Tactile memories of intimacy taken under false pretenses, needed any way he could get it. A kiss stolen from unconscious lips, pleasure taken by force when he didn't even know why he wanted it. He took each memory out and examined it, studying it minutely, puzzling through motivation and outcome and need and desire. They were as clear as fine Austrian crystal, sharp as broken glass under his feet. Shattering his reality like a prism and reflecting it back to him on all sides.

Mulder stirred, muttering something under his breath, too soft to make out. Krycek studied the lines of worry and tension in his face that didn't ever completely smooth out, even in sleep. His gaze drifted lower, over the line of muscle clearly defined where the thin tee shirt was pulled against his chest, down along the bulky outline of bandages from his most recent brush with death, settling finally on the relaxed hand laying along the curve of his thigh. He drew a sudden, sharp breath, knowing now why that breath hurt so much. Understanding why he had to protect Mulder, orders or not. Recognizing, finally, what his superiors had known and traded on for almost three years.

"What's wrong?"

The soft question jerked his eyes up to meet half opened, sleepy hazel eyes peering at him intently. He opened his mouth to answer, and realized for the first time that he was crying. It shocked him into complete immobility. He could not remember the last time he had actually cried.

Mulder sat up, slowly, wincing with the pain in his side. "What happened? Is it Scully?" Panic made the words curl up by the end of the sentence. Krycek licked his lips, and tried again to say something.

"No." Well, good, that was a start. It was more a croak than a word, but at least it was understandable.

"Then what is it?" There was a hint of impatience in his voice now, as he settled gingerly into the side cushion on the couch.

"Nothing." He couldn't tell him this. He was having a hard time telling himself this. Krycek scrubbed briskly at the moisture on his cheeks and cleared his throat. "Scully'll be back soon. We have to figure out what the hell we're gonna do next."

"Yeah," Mulder agreed readily enough, still studying the other man suspiciously. They were both a little relieved to hear the key in the door.

Scully felt the tension as soon as she stepped in the room. Krycek rose to help her without a word, and when Mulder tried to follow suit she ordered him firmly back down on the couch. The pain medication she had slipped into his tea earlier was making him drowsy again, and he slid awkwardly back down into a prone position and let sleep claim him.

Her kitchen was relatively small, and she wasn't used to working with another person in it. The third time they bumped together in the cramped space she shooed him over to the table. Putting the last of the vegetables in the crisper, she put her mug of cold tea in the microwave and turned to lean against the counter, studying him. He sat, shoulders slumped, fingers laced together on the tabletop, studying his thumbnail as if it was the most fascinating thing in the universe.

"Okay, give," she broke the silence abruptly, keeping her voice soft enough to not disturb the man sleeping in the other room. "What happened?"

"Nothing." He wouldn't look at her. She stared for a long moment at the man she was so used to hating, and found herself feeling unaccountably protective. The thought took her aback. Swallowing the unaccustomed emotion, she tried again, more forcefully.

"The hell it is." Her unusual obscenity surprised him, and he raised his gaze to meet hers. The unexpected misery in the dark green depths made her catch her breath, and she continued, more gently than she would have expected. "We're in the final round here, Krycek. If there's something eating at you, it's safer for all of us if it's out in the open." He seemed to consider her words seriously, then gave her a bitter smile. She ignored the ping of the microwave and came over to the table to sit beside him. "Talk to me, Alex."

He drew a deep breath, then stared off into the middle distance, looking at something she couldn't see. "I finally figured it out, Scully."

When he didn't seem eager to continue, she prompted him softly. "Figured what out? Did you remember something? Is that it?" Damn, she wished Mulder was in here. He was the psychologist. Not her specialty. Dead people didn't talk much.

"Remember? Sorta. More like ... recognized. I finally figured out why I have to protect him, help him. Part of it's to save my ass, I know, and for the longest time I thought that was it." He stopped suddenly and pinned her with a hard stare. "I s'pose he told you what I did to him ... with him, when I had him hostage." She looked at him wide-eyed, not moving, allowing him to draw his own conclusions. He drew the wrong one.

"Of course he did, he tells you everything. Did he tell you why? It wasn't rape, Scully, not really." He was so deeply into his memories, staring at his clenched hands, that he missed her jolt at his words. Rape? He *raped* Mulder? "It was more than that. He was ... he enjoyed it, too, I know it was the drugs, but he wanted it too. Not the way I wanted it, though, needed it. Fuck!" He opened his hands and dropped his forehead into his palms, shoulders shaking with the force of his confession. “They knew! They *knew* I was in love with him and they *used* that, they used *me*, and I didn't even know why!"

His voice had dropped to a low hiss by the end, and she bent near to him to make out what he was saying. She was shocked to see tears forcing themselves painfully from the corners of his tightly closed eyes. Taking a deep, calming breath, she laid a tentative hand on his back. The muscles were iron hard, trembling slightly. Unconsciously rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades, she exercised all the control she could muster to keep her voice steady.

"Does he know?" Utterly calm. God. How did she manage that? All that doctor's training coming to the fore.

"No. How could he?" A slight noise that might have been a laugh from between the long fingers. "I didn't 'know' myself until just a little while ago."

"Keep it that way, then, at least for now." He raised his head and looked searchingly at her. "We have to move, now, while we can. Last night proved that Mulder is no longer safe. Whatever, or whoever, was protecting him no longer is. If we don't take down the Consortium now we are all dead. And he's distracted enough already. Don't hit him with this yet. Wait until the dust has settled. Then, when he, and you, can take the time to figure out what is going on between the two of you, *then* bring it up. Until then, use it to your advantage." The look changed to one of pure skepticism. "You want to protect him. You've proven that. Now do it. And use that, uhm, your love," she just about coughed. It was such a strange conversation, she couldn't quite believe it was occurring. "Use your love to take down those who are threatening him."

He nodded, biting his lip and considering her advice. A sound from the front room broke the tension in the atmosphere, and he looked over her shoulder with something like fear in his face. She turned swiftly, but seeing Mulder just sitting up on the couch, turned back to Krycek. Placing one hand firmly over his, she asserted, "I'm not going to say a word. It's between the two of you. But not now. Later." He nodded agreement and she rose to hurry into the other room. Krycek stared after her, his expression gradually hardening as his attention turned from his newly discovered emotions to the task facing them.

Time to take down the Cancerman. Hard. Permanently.

 

It took most of the night and one hell of a lot of favors, and the end result was both rougher and less certain than they would have hoped, but at least it was a workable plan. Scully took one set of incriminating paperwork to FBI headquarters, to bring Skinner into the loop. Krycek and Mulder headed for Bethesda, making a flank attack and using the devil's own allies against him. While Skinner was presenting an exceptionally strong case to the head of the investigatory branch of the Internal Revenue Service and the team of lawyers from the Security Exchange Commission, Mulder was heading into a meeting with his only somewhat reliable ally within the shadow government. Krycek stayed well out of detection range, watching the proceedings, gun in hand. He didn't like to be too far away, because if Mulder needed backup, he was it. When he saw who Mulder's 'source' was he barely managed to keep the curse behind his teeth.

"What do you have for me, Mulder? I don't appreciate being summoned like this. Especially in broad daylight."

"Something came up," Mulder replied to the dark skinned man glaring suspiciously at him from the end of the bench. "Something big." He removed the copy of the evidence from his coat and handed it to his contact. "We finally found a way to stop the Cancerman, and I think he knows it." Sharp dark eyes narrowed at the agent's words. "Someone tried to kill me last night. So whoever was protecting me, if anyone was, has changed his mind. We're moving on this, now. By the time this hits the papers, which it will with this afternoon's Wall Street Journal, Cancerman and his cronies will find themselves ass deep in alligators."

"For what?" Mr. X asked dryly. "Insider trading?" He removed the sheets from the envelope and began to scan them.

"Not quite. But close. Besides the issue of tax evasion," he ignored X's look of disbelief "there's enough evidence of manipulating the world stock exchanges to put him and his friends behind bars for a very long time." The other man's face tightened as he took in the incriminating figures, dates, names, traces tying the upper echelon of the Consortium to financial crimes they hadn't considered important enough to conceal. On their own, they weren't. Put together to form a coherent whole, they were a net made of steel.

"I don't believe this," he breathed. Looking up at Mulder's determined face, he took a deep breath.

"It worked for the gangbusters in the thirties, and it will work for us now."

"Why are you telling me?" Did Mulder know his own name was in these papers?

"Back up. I don't trust him. He's got money, and he's got contacts. I need you to take me to him. I'm going to arrest the bastard myself."

"You are out of your mind." Complete conviction in the cold voice.

"Maybe. But the only thing he has is his power. Take that away from him, and I just might have the leverage I need to get him to answer my questions." The older man snorted his lack of faith in this outcome, and Mulder's voice hardened. "It's a moot point. This is what we have, and this is what we'll have to use. Time's run out. For all of us." They stared at one another for what felt like an eternity before Mr. X looked away.

"All right."

"My car." A quick scowl from his contact. He didn't like it. Mulder didn't budge. The other man gave one short, sharp nod, and they rose from the bench and headed for the parking lot. As they settled in the front seat of the blue Taurus, the rear passenger seat door opened quickly and a dark figure slid into the seat. His gun was drawn and behind Mr. X's ear before the older man could pull away.

"Back off, Krycek, he's a ... well, maybe not a friend, but not an enemy." Mulder's voice was harsh. Krycek couldn't see the gun that X had aimed at his side.

"Hello, Jonathon." Neither gun wavered.

"Hello, Alexei."

"Well, isn't this nice. No need to waste time with introductions, I see." Mulder sat with both hands on the wheel, very nearly holding his breath.

"You know who this guy is, Mulder?" Krycek asked coldly.

"A contact," Mulder replied shortly. "He's going to lead us to the Cancerman."

"He's gonna lead us to our graves if we trust him."

"Who the fuck said I trust him?" Mulder's voice was tight with strain. "I don't trust anybody! But he's the closest we have to a pointer, and he has a gun pointed at me, and if you have a better idea I'd sure as hell like to hear it!" Krycek's response wasn't reassuring. He cocked the trigger. Mulder shut his eyes. It was all going to hell and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.

"Lower the gun, Jonathon. You know me. Pretty well, really. You know to save myself I'll sacrifice anyone. And I can pull this trigger before you can swing that gun this way. So unless you want your brains all over the fucking windshield, put down the gun."

Mulder forced his eyes open in time to see the dark man lower his weapon. He reached out, rather shakily, and took it from his hand. X was looking straight ahead, ignoring the gun muzzle a whisper from his ear.

"Drive north to Addison street and take a left."

There was more going on here than he was being told, Mulder knew, but that was certainly not unusual. He'd have the whole story from Krycek when this was over. One way or the other.

Forty minutes later they pulled up in front of a nondescript brownstone in a quiet residential district of Arlington. Carefully approaching from the side, they made an odd procession, but there was no one out in the midmorning street to notice. As they entered the side door with Mr. X's key, Krycek began to get itchy. It was going too easily.

X took the lead, followed by Mulder, with Krycek picking up the end, doing his best to look every direction at once. X paused outside an oak paneled door, then gestured mockingly at the handle, indicating that Mulder should precede him. The agent looked from his contact to the door, held his handgun ready, and kicked the door in with one sudden blow. He came around the corner with all due speed, X right behind him, prodded along by Krycek. What he saw made him curse viciously. Someone had obviously been there before him.

Four older men lay in grotesque parody of a board meeting. A desiccated stick of a man was at the head of the table, a trail of blood leading from his nostrils and mouth to cover his chin. There was a neat hole in the center of his forehead, and the back of his skull was missing. A corpulent man in a white linen suit sprawled at his left hand. His expression was impossible to read due to the exit wound from a high caliber weapon that had taken away two thirds of his face. To the right hand of the table, the well dressed man who had so often questioned the Cancerman's dealings with the Consortium slumped in his chair, the usually immaculate shirt front shredded by multiple bullet wounds. He had a vaguely startled look on his face. And at the end of the table, crumpled over it, fallen where he had apparently been standing, the Cancerman lay across the fine grained wood, arms outflung as if in supplication, fingers splayed against the darkness of the blood that had flowed from the explosion of his chest cavity. The smell of blood and fecal matter was heavy in the chamber.

"Oh, shit." Mulder's voice was a mere whisper. He dropped his arms and looked in complete astonishment at the tableau, trying hard not to vomit at the stench. As he tried to take it in, he heard Krycek scream, "No!" and turned in time to see his erstwhile contact swing his gun up.

Krycek flung himself between the two men, bringing his own weapon up and firing as he went. Three slugs took X high in the chest and shoulder, twisting him around and throwing him up against the wall. Krycek rocked back from the force of the shot he took to the abdomen, crumpling over and dropping his gun. Mulder caught him as he fell, wincing and spitting out a sharp curse as the strain ground his broken ribs together. He lowered Krycek as gently as he could to the ground, and hurried to check X's condition. He knew by the blank look in the glassy eyes that it was too late, but he checked for a pulse anyway. In the distance he heard the sound of sirens pulling closer. Stepping away from X, he gathered up Krycek's gun and stuck it in his waistband, then bent over the softly moaning man.

"Krycek. C'mon, man, we have to get out of here. Can you move?" He gritted his teeth against the pain in his side and pulled Alex upright. The dark head fell back against his shoulder, but Krycek clutched his stomach and staggered to his feet. Together they managed to get back down the side exit and away from the building before the first of the police stormed up the front steps.

 

The six o'clock news was fascinating. The multiple murders, and the complicated web of international intrigue that surrounded them, artfully leaked by the remaining Lone Gunmen, ensured that the remnants of the Consortium would be running for a very long time. Mulder would have been jubilant, if he wasn't huddled in an uncomfortable plastic chair staring at the still form of Alex Krycek. He'd undergone five hours of surgery to remove the fragments of the bullet from his abdominal cavity and repair the damage they had done. Scully knew the surgeons well, and vouched for their trustworthiness. Mulder was still relieved when Krycek made it through alive. He knew he was paranoid, but he just didn't have good luck with hospitals. And he was half afraid if he stopped his vigilance someone would sneak in and inject poison in Krycek's IV, or spirit him away and give him to aliens, or blow his head off ...

The door swung quietly open and he looked up to see Scully staring thoughtfully down at him.

"How are you doing, Mulder?" The concern in her voice brought the trace of a smile to his face.

"Fine," he returned, adhering to their established routine. She returned the smile briefly, then picked up the chart at the side of the door and studied it. "How's it look?" He couldn't help but think it had to be bad. Krycek looked almost fragile, a strange state for him.

"Pretty good, actually. The soft tissue damage was relatively easy to repair, no major damage was done to the organs, and the blood loss was within acceptable limits." Mulder thought of the blood splashed liberally on the car seat and restrained a shudder. "His main problem is that his general physical condition is run down, his resistance is low, and he's exhausted. He doesn't have much to fight back with at the moment. Once he wakes up and his condition stabilizes, he'll be free to go."

In exchange for the help he had given them, not least of which was the incriminating documents that brought the Consortium to its knees, Mulder had convinced Skinner not to bring charges against Krycek.

"Go where, though?" Mulder asked softly.

Scully sighed. "Well, he could come to my place, I suppose. After all, with everything that's gone on there I might as well turn it into a convalescent hospital. Make it official." She smiled grimly at him, and he shook his head.

"Will he need a doctor's care?" She stared at him for a moment.

"No, just someone to make sure he doesn't overdo it. Doesn't push himself too soon, too fast."

Mulder stared at Krycek, sleeping peacefully, whuffing gently with the aid of the oxygen cannula. Scully watched him for a moment, then pushed a straight backed chair over next to him and settled into it.

"Mulder?" Her voice was hesitant. She wasn't sure she wanted to bring this up.

"It's the weirdest thing," he said, equally softly, as if he hadn't heard her. "You go through so much thinking you hate someone. Really hate them, you know? Want to kill him. Then you finally get a chance to think about it, and you know what? You realize you owe him. And it's a weird feeling." He pulled his eyes away from the bed and stared at her. "You know why he's here, Scully? He saved my life. *Again.* It's become a habit with him. Over the past year he has saved my life three times."

"How do you feel about that?" She was on rocky ground here, and she knew it.

"I ... don't know." He laughed, a short, painful sound, and laced his fingers together, looping them around his knee and staring at his knuckles. "That's the hardest part. I should hate him, you know? He ... he hurt me." He took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. "When he kidnapped me, he shot me up with something."

He ignored her soft "I remember, Mulder," concentrating on getting it all out. "It was supposed to make me easier to handle, but it had side effects. He ... noticed, and took advantage of the fact. And I ... I remember it." He closed his eyes, unwilling or unable to face her while he told her the rest of it. "I can't forget it. I tried. And over the months, through the Markham case and the time he spent with me regaining his memory and these recent weeks he's been helping us, it's getting so confusing. Because I know I should hate him."

His eyes flew open and he stared at her, pleading for help with this one, because it had him in knots that he didn't know how to untie. "But how can I hate him when he keeps getting hurt protecting me? And how can I hate him when I want him so much?"

She held his gaze with hers, and gave him an answer he didn't expect to hear. "There is an old saying that hate is the mirror face of love, Mulder. In a lot of ways, Krycek is the dark reflection of you. And he has proven himself willing to literally die for you. That's a strong tie. Right now, he's hurt, and you're tired and confused. Why don't you give it some time. Let him get stronger. Let the dust settle." Where have I said this before? she thought with some amusement. "Then talk to him. Ask him how he feels. Maybe by then you'll have a better grip on how you feel." She watched his eyes widen, staring fixedly at her. "What?"

"Oh, I dunno, I guess I was just expecting you to say something else."

"Like what?"

"Shoot the bastard and check yourself into the psych ward." His dry comment surprised a gurgle of laughter from her.

"No, Mulder. I think ... I think this is something you need to explore. Or else you're always going to wonder." Reaching over to pat his shoulder, she smiled when he reached up and caught her hand. Squeezing it gently, she withdrew and walked quietly from the room. Mulder settled back into the chair and resumed his watch.

Pausing as the door swung shut behind her, Scully raised her eyes to meet the stoic face of her superior, standing across the hallway next to the window, his arms crossed over his chest. Moving to his side, she tilted her head to better see his expression. His face was still, but his eyes betrayed his concern.

"Is he going to be okay, Agent Scully?"

"He came through the surger-"

"I meant Mulder," he interrupted softly. She nibbled at her lower lip and gave the question the consideration it deserved.

"I think so, Sir. It's been a hard week." He smiled slightly at her understatement, and changed the subject, as satisfied by her reassurance as he could be.

"Would you care for a cup of coffee?" He watched her eyes widen as she weighed the many possible shadings behind the simple invitation, and was warmed by her calm acceptance of all of them.

"I'd like that very much, Sir."

 

The next three weeks were some of the strangest Mulder had ever lived through. He worked short shifts, taking paperwork home with him to sift through it for information that might lead him to the whereabouts of his sister. Raiding the Consortium headquarters had unearthed a motherlode of information, and he was looking forward to taking it apart, sifting it for clues. Scully had been spending a lot of time with Director Skinner, and he found himself wondering at her unusually serene good humor. With a stern self admonition to not go there, he buried himself in the paperwork.

Working from home also gave him time to baby-sit Krycek. Not that either man would call it that. Alex needed someplace to recuperate, and Mulder could get away from the office more easily than Scully. It worked out surprisingly well, and they soon settled into a comfortable routine. Mulder found the whole situation bizarre in the extreme. Krycek was the perfect house guest. He didn't say much. He didn't make much of a mess, not that it would be obvious in Mulder's apartment if he did. Krycek slept on the bed, Mulder slept on the couch, and for three solid weeks the depth of the conversation never went any further than the Redskins and the weather.

He thought he was going insane.

Krycek didn't seem to have any problem with it at all.

Late one Friday evening, after Scully had helped them finish off the last of the pizza and a couple not bad bottles of red wine and made her tired way home, Mulder sprawled on the couch, remote in hand. Krycek sat on the floor and leaned against the front of the cushions, watching the flickering channels without comment. He had healed well, and knew it wouldn't be long before he'd have to be on his way. His eyes dropped to the frayed carpet, knowing that the dust Scully had mentioned was as settled as it was going to get, knowing that he had to make a choice. He either brought it all up and risked having Mulder kick his ass out on the street, or he buried it for good and did his best to forget the emotion it had taken him so long to recognize. The thought of the missed chances made his throat tighten. Before he could clear it enough to start a sentence, he was startled to feel fingertips brushing through the thick hair behind his left ear.

"Your hair's gettin' long." Mulder's voice was slightly slurred with the wine, and sounded distracted. Krycek swallowed dryly and followed his lead, wondering where it would take them.

"Yeah. Need a haircut."

"I kinda like it long. It's curly." He found himself leaning into that hand, the light feathering touch slowly resolving into a caress. He turned his head carefully so as not to dislodge those questing fingers, until he could look up into heavy lidded hazel eyes. What he saw there made him go very still.

Heat. Liquid heat, shimmering, turning the hazel to golden green. He caught his breath. The hand ceased its exploration and curved around the back of his head, holding him steady as Mulder leaned slowly down toward him. His eyes dropped to that mouth, the full lower lip glistening slightly, and his own lips parted in stunned anticipation. This simply could not be happening.

But it did.

It was softer, sweeter than he thought it would be, and his eyes closed of their own volition, his entire concentration centered on the mouth gently devouring his own. He tasted wine, and spices, and something distinctly Mulder. The other man deepened the kiss, and Krycek gave himself up to it completely. When they finally broke apart, they were both gasping for breath. And Mulder was looking at him as if he was one of his Reticulans.

"Hey," he managed, "Don't look at me like that. You started it!"

Mulder's mouth twitched, but he controlled the smile before it could take hold. "I don't know about that." He fingered a set of thin scars encircling his wrist, a physical reminder of what Krycek had done to him over a year before. Alex swallowed heavily, following the movement with his eyes. "Why'd ya do it, Krycek? I wasn't going anywhere, not with that shit you shot me up with."

Alex's hand moved to join Mulder's, tracing the raised line, not daring to look up. "I need to tell you something."

"You were high too and didn't know what you were doing?"

It worked. Krycek looked up from the warm skin under his fingers to glare at Mulder. "Funny. No. I didn't mean to ... It wasn't part of the plan ... Damnit, I didn't do it all just so we could have sex." He ignored Mulder's challenging look and forged on. "You really were bait, in order to make a deal and get Scully and Skinner and you off my ass long enough to deal with the Cancerman. The rest ... Do you know why they assigned me to be your partner after the X Files were closed down?"

The question and apparent change of subject threw Mulder for a moment before he could reply. "Uhm, so you could spy on me and sabotage my work?"

"So I could protect you."

"Right." A pause, then, derisively, "Bullshit."

"No," he returned forcefully. "Not bullshit. What I told you, about admiring you, studying your work, that was all true. And they knew that. They used it. That's why they picked me. They knew I could keep you alive and still keep you from the truth. I asked the Cancerman one time why we didn't just kill you." Mulder raised an eyebrow, interested in hearing his Nemesis' reply. "He said he didn't want to make a martyr of you. I couldn't believe how relieved I was to hear that. I didn't want to hurt you. And over time, as things got completely out of control and I realized just how fucking deep I was in it, I started screwing up. They were making me hurt you and I was no damned good at that. I wanted ... I needed to protect you, and I never stopped running long enough to ask myself why." He stopped to catch his breath after the rush of words.

"So, now that you've stopped running -- Why?" Mulder's voice sounded loud in the small room.

"Because they knew something I didn't recognize myself." God, this was hard.

"What?" Mulder sounded slightly out of breath himself.

Krycek clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. "I love you." Well. That was that. He waited for some sign of reaction, braced to defend himself when Mulder swung at him.

Nothing.

He risked a glance sideways.

Mulder looked like he'd been poleaxed. Krycek licked his lips nervously and rushed to fill the silence.

"I know you hate me. Shit, how could you not? I mean, makes perfect sense to me, I do all these godawful things and get you in all this trouble and chain you up an-" Long fingers pressed against his lips, stemming the flow of words.

"I haven't the faintest idea what I feel for you, Krycek." Mulder took in the wide, dark eyes and the nervous expression on the younger man's face. "But I do know one thing. It's not hatred." If possible, the eyes got wider. "Don't have much of a clue what it is and it probably should be hate, but it isn't." He sighed, trailing his fingertips down the soft lips and square jaw. "But stick around. We'll figure it out. Somehow. And sometime." His hand dropped and he settled back into the cushions, staring sightlessly at the images moving across the television screen. "Not tonight."

Krycek relaxed against the front of the couch, chewing over what had just happened. Mulder hadn't punched him, or shot him, or thrown him out. He'd told the truth, and Mulder hadn't hated him for it. He had time. A warm feeling settled in the pit of his stomach and he analyzed it for some time before he recognized it. For the first time in a very, very long time, he had hope. He had no idea what the future would hold, but at least now he knew there would be one.

 end, story and series

 

 


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